


the feeling of uncertainty (the eeriness of silence)

by Tab_oo



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Accidental Anorexia, Anger, Angst, Dark, Drunk Gavin, Excessive Swearing, Family Friendly PG Clean (Sort Of), Fatphobia Undertones, Gavin Reed Being an Asshole, Gavin's backstory, Half-Brothers AU, Insensitive Topics, M/M, Mutual Pining, Slow Burn, Starvation, Unstable Gavin Reed, but they're not because this fic is, chen forces gavin to live with simon & daniel & ralph because he's UNsTAbLE, even around 2 years after the incident, gavin doesn't know how to deal with/what feelings are, gavin likes to act angsty, no beta we die like men, people think they're a threesome, ralph lives with simon and daniel, reed900, rk series are adopted brothers, we like alcohol
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-03
Updated: 2018-08-30
Packaged: 2019-06-21 01:16:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 36,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15546396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tab_oo/pseuds/Tab_oo
Summary: Well, fuck it. Not like he has any morals to uphold and honor anymore, so just fuck it all.As the black, black, blackness of the dark slowly - yet terribly, so vividly harshly - begins to seep in heavy amounts into Gavin's vision, the very last functioning part of his brain offers a last thought.FuckNothing good ever stays for long around Gavin Reed.---Or where Gavin is split up into different versions of himself: into the scowling asshole that the precinct knows, the fucked up coward that he keeps behind locked doors, and maybe, just maybe - with some good time and development - eventually something that's not so bad in the middle.Previously named 'Stop and Stare.'





	1. Prologue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey, this is my first fic and i have absolutely no beta for it/no help from editors, so please don't pay grammar mistakes or messups much mind. i've never really written anything that isn't a shitty roleplay forum response, so help, comments, kudos, etc. would be really helpful ! 
> 
> (also I can't play d:bh characters for my life so please bear with me)
> 
> title from juice wrld's Legends

_Gavin doesn't know what to fucking do._

_What's just happened is the literal equivalent of life dropping a massive, bloody, human-shaped pile of shit on him, no exaggeration included whatsoever, and Gavin does not know what to fucking do about it._

_He sits there on the concrete for a good few hours, the blinking lights of the city slowly beginning to fade around him and relieving his heavy gaze from their sharp, luridly bright colours. His skin feels strange placed against the coolness of the ground beneath him, its number of lumps and bumps reminding him how imperfect everything is, and how nothing good can ever,_ ever _present itself or stay with Gavin fucking Reed for too long._

_He doesn't know why._

_Life is a bitch that's almost as cold as the harsh, howling wind ripping at his ratty rust-colored hoodie, a partially ripped and grimy garment that provides very little protection against the forces of nature rippling around the young man. But he doesn't mind it, doesn't mind or care about the cold, because what has just happened is nothing near as important. Nothing and nobody is as important as Elle, and he wonders why the fuck he didn't know that._

_Maybe it's his fault._

_Fuck, it is._

_Even if the blame wasn't to be placed on him for practically ignoring her for the past few weeks, there was certainly some shame to be leveled upon him because of how slow he had moved, how long it had taken him to reach her, and the simple fact that it had been far too late when he had. Fuck why did he have to move so slow? Not much action had been thrown at his precinct lately, so most of his days had simply included him sitting lazily around and shifting through files, so it was reasonable to believe that Gavin had softened up. But hell if that meant he was okay with it._

_He'd never really cared about how pudgy his stomach gradually became since Elle never had. It was cute, she'd said, it made him look fiercely huggable and loveable, which could quickly combat his easy frown. He hadn't thought it was important because she hadn't._

_Fuck, was that a mistake._

_One of his cold hands (at this point, he can't tell which one it is, can barely tell what is around him in the alleyway anymore) raises from its limp position on the chilling cement, raising and flexing his fingers to caress her cheek so very gently. Blood immediately smears against his knuckles, speckles of ugly crimson flicking themselves against his already flushed, slightly pinkish skin, but he finds it difficult to care less as he tilts his hand to raise her face. Dull gray eyes stare openly back at him as he peers into them, praying to a god he hardly - no,_ doesn't _, but Gavin desperately needs something right now - believes in to see that familiar, lively shade of colour._

_He sits unanswered, his wishes ungranted, his pleas unheard._

_Well, shit._

__

__

_What the fuck did he expect, anyways? He was Gavin fucking Reed, and things were not supposed to be good for Gavin fucking Reed, because life had long ago declared that he was supposed to die a shitty mess._

_His good days with Elle were probably all just a lie - a facade to make her death, her departure from him hurt so much more._

_Yet still he finds himself in his minuscule apartment moments later (how the hell did he get there?), eyes weighed down and vision blurry because of tears (since when did he start crying?) as he stands in front of the window above the kitchen sink, pain strangely muted because of the shock (but probably mostly because of the alcohol). His eyes are barely able to make out the city below him in the view let alone his own reflection, but what he does see makes him want to let out a disgusting noise of pity - pity for himself, because man, has Gavin Reed let himself go. Dark, reddish bags crawl underneath his usually glimmering grayish-brown eyes as fat tears slip down his flushed face, his left arm weighed down by what he notices is a large bottle of cheap whiskey in the window. Turning his entire head to it, he realizes it's half empty, and only when this realization hits him is when the shocking, disgusting taste of the alcohol rushes to him. Damn, he actually liked alcohol. What the fuck's gotten into him now, to actually not like the taste?_

_The taste stings almost as harshly, as sharply, and as bitterly as his loss - yet this sting is so much more real,_ feels _so much more legit, like he can actually believe it. Because Gavin Reed can fucking believe in the vividness of alcohol, but he can't, just can't, apparently come to terms with the fucked up fact that his fucking girlfriend is fucking_ dead. __

_Maybe he's going fucking insane. He'd have to be, to leave her all alone in that alleyway._

__

_Maybe he is._

__

_Maybe he is._

_He swings his body around, movements made sluggish by the effects of pure alcohol, and notices his three cats lounging on the countertop like the most pretentious fucking kings the good green Earth has the pleasure of hosting. Each are sprawled in equally lazy positions, one with a petite paw raised to lick at delicately, none at all concerned at how their owner is acting and how their other is currently lying dead in an alleyway. But fuck, that's the world's pretentious motherfuckers for you. What could you really expect?_

_For a moment, a fleeting thought of anger reaches him - perhaps he could knock off their smug little expressions (how fucking dare they, how fucking dare they look so happy and pretentious and sure of themselves when Gavin can't even piece himself together, how fucking dare they look so normal when he's not, how fucking dare they lounge around_ when she's gone? _) by cutting them up with the bottle in his hand, a thought that is immediately rejected by the small part of his brain that is still functioning. Because no. No, no, if he fucks up again, fucks up like he usually does, and hurts his cats, he'll sure as hell have nothing left, nothing left with him and nothing left for him to forge on for. And that's something Gavin simply can't afford - no, not with Elle gone._

_He can't have something else taken away from him too, taken away from him by his own hand._

__

_Maybe he doesn't deserve them, maybe that's why his brain's punishing him with such thoughts._

__

__

__

_It's his fucking fault she's gone, anyways. Maybe he's being selfish, letting himself keep his long time companions. Maybe he deserves to have them taken away too, to be removed from the good green Earth or at least away from God's greatest fuckup, Gavin fucking Reed._

__

__

_Fuck, his head hurts._

_For a long moment, he begins to sway in the air, his legs shaking as they threaten to give way for the slightly pudgy male. Noticing this and fearing the terrible embrace of the horrifyingly chilly ground already, the young man drunkenly stumbles forwards, lurching and reaching for the helping hand that is the walls caging him in this tiny apartment. His feet shuffles about the lump carpet as his left hand swings about, losing their grip on the bottle he's holding. It slowly, lightly slips out of the tender embrace his fingers are enclosing it in, dropping out of his grasp upon a part of the ground that coincidentally bears no carpet to land on the ground with a harsh bang of resonating noise._

_He stills for a moment to stare at the shards of glass that form patterns on the ground, wondering if they're as mispatterned and in as much disarray as his life is now, wondering if the bottle's so broken it's almost as shattered as he is._

_Fuck, he's so insane he's getting somewhat_ poetic _. Elle would be twisting and turning if she was still alive (but she wouldn't let him get into this situation in the first place, would force him to snap himself back into his slightly misshapen - but still somewhat acceptable - shape and carry on, not to mention the fact that if she was still alive he wouldn't be so fucked right now)._

_Would maybe be in almost as much pain as he was._

_His moment ending abruptly, he keels forwards, head still throbbing massively and unable to see much in front of him as his forehead comes closer and closer to a part of the floor that's hardwood._

_Then the floor siders up awfully close to him as a loud smash comes to his ears, his simple drunkness clouding up the pain that should be jolting him alive right now as his eyes flutter abruptly shut._

Pathetic.

_He should be scrambling upright right now, shaking his head and scowling in disappointment at himself and indulging his weary body in just a little more of that well abused dose of self-loathing._

__

_Still, everything's dark._

__

__

__

_Everything goes dark, sinks darker still as Gavin begins to succumb, unwanting to get up, completely incapable_ _of rousing himself for once. Unable to get up to just start hating himself once again._

__

_He's always hated the toxic brats in typical teenage angst shows who complain, who mope so much about their coincidental misfortune that it soon grows tedious to watch even a more domestic moment of their lives. He's always held himself to a higher standard, always felt himself better than that._

__

_Well, fuck it. Not like he has any morals to uphold and honor anymore, so just_ fuck it all. __

__

_As the black, black, blackness of the dark slowly - yet terribly, so vividly harshly - begins to seep in heavy amounts into Gavin's vision, the very last functioning part of his brain offers a last thought._

__

__

__

__Fuck.

__

__

__

_Nothing good ever stays for long around Gavin Reed._

__

__

__

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i honestly don't know what im doing - im still getting into writing right now, but please still do enjoy this fic. again, it's my first, so please leave kudos/comments/etc. !


	2. Piece of Work

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Gavin's never quite used to the stares, Chen is a douche, and Fowler challenges her for her crown with some news.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i really want to mention that the tags for this fic have been updated. unfortunately there will be some more insensitive, sort of gory or controversial topics in this fic (hopefully not too much, as i'm still easing myself into writing properly and this fic's more of a character study/me trying to figure out the ups and downs of fics than a proper story), many of which will be consisting of hopefully lighter fatphobic undertones.
> 
> i want to also mention that i personally do not have anything against people who are lighter or weigh more than others, and that i don't really think weight or really much else besides personality matters about a person at all (but i do prefer writing darker characters, so some shallower characters in this fic may not be feeling the same). But i'd also like to try to explain why i'm writing about this touchy subject because i'm trying to show that gavin initially blames himself for the mishap and that in his grief he's quick to blame anything about him for being the cause of the bad thing that happened (i'm fairly sure 70% of you can tell what happened because of my heavy hinting). i also like the way others sometimes write gavin as a character who's actually got some justification besides his broken behavior, and i tried to make my own partial justification for him.
> 
> the only fatphobia in this fic, however, will be displayed by gavin himself in harsher moments (and hopefully not very often). reed will also be commonly described as slender and lithe further on, but it won't really be emphasized on whether or not that's good or not. i just want readers to know this, and that some chapters will certainly be more humorful and/or light than others. but remember to keep in mind that this fic won't be as fluffy as some of the other reed900 fics out there. if i have extra time, i'll be writing other reed900 fics in the future, of which will probably be much lighter, so if you like my style but don't like darker subjects, watch out for those.
> 
> all in all, my main message is that if you get offended easily or don't like to see touchier subjects, you probably shouldn't read this fic (i also apologize to some of the readers if anything offends you here in general/in advance for darker times), as it'll have dark and light bumps along the road and won't be the easiest to read due to the fact that i'm still very new to ao3. but i do recommend any of the lovely reed900 fics this website hosts, though !

Gavin had never really gotten used to the stares.

He meant, maybe he should've. It had been approximately 2 years, 1 month, and 19 days since he fucked up, blacked out, nearly died, got his door kicked down by the one and only Tina Chen, and was forced to return to his normal way of life, after all, so it was hardly like the stares had just recently started being directed at him. But that still hardly changed the fact that for 33 years the young male been mostly ignored, not stared at for long (and if so only for the garish scar ripping itself a path of raw pink flesh against his usually-broken nose), and more often glared at than stared at, which was a feeling that he had never quite hated, actually. Gavin preferred to see himself as somewhat as a - as Chris liked to innocently point out - "rock-hard bitch," and hell if he was gonna sacrifice that title for being upset about not being stared at. The feeling, anyways, was certainly better than the one that was usually forced upon Gavin then. He would certainly rather fade into the background, anyways, than be unnaturally gawked at like he was entirely made out of pure fucking gold every time he walked into a room. Now _that_ was a feeling he was forced to experience often now, and Gavin was not so pleased about it. It was for a rather shallow reason, anyways, of which Chris also liked to calmly reason as him becoming "a literal fucking snack."

Which was weird, of course, but Chris liked to speak in such ancient terms on the regular, so Gavin tried not to make a big deal out of it (he meant, the second time. The first time, of course, included the young man popping off of his rocker and screeching like a rabid monkey in one of his only friends's face).

Gavin had not really known when he got pretty, didn't know that he was particularly 'pretty' at all (as arrogant he liked to act, he wasn't really that full of pent up bullshit). Honestly, he was hardly sure that he even liked being thought of as the word. It was not like that he had anything largely against being 'pretty' (it was often rather the people who were such who bothered the shit out of Gavin, due to the fact of Gavin wanted to throw them a swift jab to the throat) - no, it was not simply that. But he had always felt that the word itself was a bit too annoyingly feminine for him - which wouldn't be the worst if not for Detective Reed's need to maintain a "tougher" reputation he worked far too hard for. But that all hardly even touched on the darker subjects roaming Gavin's mind, the subjects that roar of how he doesn't deserve it, greedy pig, doesn't deserve it after what happened to Elle because he's a sick fuck who isn't worth much more than the cheap whisky he stocks by the tens in his apartment.

Shit, he was getting off topic again. He certainly didn't like falling into that old pit again, the sort of pit he always thought he had left behind ages ago only to find stretching on the land ahead of him.

But who the fuck acts that dark, that stupidly self-deprecating at their workplace (now that Gavin thinks about it, a lot of people - he doesn't know anybody who would give a fuck about work that much because he'd rather not hang out with those type of losers), anyways? Sometimes it's better for Gavin to severely distance himself in mannerisms from the precinct's pretentious, pretty little bitches, but he quickly made to cast away his thoughts anyways - he definitely didn't want to be that one annoyingly melodramatic worker. He'd rather be a bitch anytime.

Not like Gavin had something or anything against the precinct's pretentious, pretty little bitches as well. They could always be annoyingly idiotic, but Gavin would be lying outright if he said they couldn't be some major fucking hot pieces of ass sometimes. But then again, that was just his ~~horny~~ childish side opening up.

Besides, he was practically incapable of liking anybody after Elle, after the all the terrible shit that had happened - but that was just his fucked up, dark side again, not his childish one. Reed was not particularly poetic, anyways, never one to be able to sort out those shitty little thoughts swirling about the wasteland that roamed his fucked up head, so he mixed them up all the same. Who gives a shit, anyways?

Not him.

The simple thought made him bark out a laugh.

Well, maybe Chen would give a shit. She was certifiably insane, anyhow - really, who in their right mind would burst into _the_ Gavin Reed's apartment a week after the mishap, only a couple days after Gavin's finally able to force himself to shovel bits of expired cereal and cheap whisky down his throat just so he can survive longer to feed his cats, and force him to recollect his life?

Yeah, she was pretty fuckin' insane - and a pretty terrible friend, at that. Forcing his life back on track and supervising the changes that shaped Gavin into the slimmer, velvet-muscled figure that he was at the moment? Fuckin' crazy. Ab-so-lutely. He didn't even know why he kept her around.

He chuckled softly to himself as his thoughts slowly rambled on, leaning his slender frame heavily against the gray framed chair arranged rather haphazardly at his messy desk, his two feet placed cheekily on one of the edges as he wraps his pinkish fingers around the handle of a coffee mug. Lifting it to his flushed lips, he reveled the heated liquid crawling rather smoothly down his usually scratchy throat like it was some sort of god, marveling its lovely texture - one of the only good things in life he found that he was allowed then - before he was forced to plunge into the garish horrors he could already sense festering in the files set on his desk. Setting down his orange mug, of which was already drained of its sickeningly sweet contents (hey, Gavin had a bit of a sweet tooth - sue him, he was a bit too in to lollipops when he was younger), he quickly began to flick through the files. The precinct had currently been implementing older bits of their history into their work, switching out some of their informational files that are usually exchanged via the internet with old fashioned pen-and-paper methods in some random way to cut costs while androids started integrating into the ranks of their officers. 

Huh, there was that thought crawling into his head again. Gavin actually had less of a problem with the new system than he would've thought - as much as he hated the plastic pricks (save for a good few, he could admit grudgingly at times - Connor had certainly grown on him), it wasn't the worst thing in the world to see them in the precinct. 

It was certainly gratifying, anyhow, to see their LEDs stutter into the yellow zone when they first see him, blinking eerily at him for a couple seconds, not entirely immune to his transformation due to their deviancy. Gavin liked to see how he had somewhat of a leverage over the piles of scraps, liked to pretend to arrogantly strut around them mockingly for fun before pleasantly surprising them by spitting some harsh curses at them and sauntering away. And as much as he'd like to see the world devoid of AI and the shit that it often brought upon the world, he could admit - only when held at gunpoint, of course - that androids were able to do work much faster than some of the lazy dumbasses the precinct hosted, and that it was much better having some hunks of plastic look at him for a couple moments than having people stare at him constantly like phuckin' idiots.

Initially, he hadn't been sure. But he was currently at a point in life where he'd rather hold onto his job and his badge - at the expense of holding in his shit for once - and he clearly knew that Chen would probably kick his ass if she found out that he lost his job for not being able to shut up around a bunch of plastic shitbags. 

Not that he'd let her. Pfft. Gavin Reed was _much_ too "insanely clever" to be beat up by some crazy female cop (although, when said crazy female cop was named Tina Chen, he wasn't quite so sure), he told to himself lightheartedly and somewhat mockingly to push away all other remaining heavy thoughts, a small chuckle working up again in the back of his throat as he began to flick through files. Initially the middle-aged man spotted nothing particularly interesting - just petty theft and more boring shit like that - until his fingers finally unveiled a particularly thick piece of work. His slightly sterling gray eyes, streaked with shades of brown like a bird's large, round egg, lifted as they opened wide in slight shock at what they snagged onto.

Inside the file laid numerous papers, all raving rather intriguingly about two men and an android that were "brutally decapitated" in what seemed like "a heavy struggle against what is suspected to be a single attacker." His dark brows furrowing, he flipped throw the thick folder rapidly, passing all the papers marked with simple type in black to allow his nimble fingers to grasp some small photographs. Spreading each out individually, his eyes widened only farther with shock at the simple gore displayed in the four pictures. 

"Holy shit," he muttered as he stared deeply into the small pictures, completely astonished by how many appalling acts could be cased in four photographs alone. Damn. He had been working in the DPD for an extremely long time, and still the simple terrors displayed in four pictures alone chill the usually hard-set man's bones.

The first three depicted the three victims, each appearing headless, as explained in the papers nestling ahead of them. The first picture he saw hosted what he quickly determined was a slightly tall man, of an extremely dark skin tone (he reasoned, however, that it could've also been the lighting in the area, of which he had earlier read was a dirty alleyway), adorned in very high-end attire. A dark tuxedo covered most of his flesh, kept in strangely impeccable shape despite what had just happened to the human whose body it was covering. Gavin noticed how skinny he appeared after raking the corpse up and down, his hypothesis aided from a large rip in the dead man's pants, which was placed so high up on his thighs that the rest of the fabric had been partially ripped away. This exposed much of his skin, marred by wounds that nearly made Gavin flinch simply from spotting them. Staring deeply for a moment once again at the massive wound poking out from the lower side of the corpse's neck, the dark haired man licked his chapped lips at the sight of severed nerves, veins, and arteries flopping hideously about in pools of blood.

How very, very disgusting.

For a good moment, Gavin was unable to tear his eyes away, peering into the cascades of blood and ripping wounds for a good following seconds before forcing himself to look at the next photo.

The next one seemed only gorier still, nearly making the detective gag. Only a small bit of his neck was missing from his body, leaving most of his neck - which had been slit open neatly - and the rest of his evenly toned body to be gazed at. After fighting the surging wave of disgust rushing over him, he was able to spot the gaping wounds stretching from the man's neck, sides, and arms. Slashing wounds patterned the man's body, ripping through his clothing and exposing a part of his body that Detective Reed blinked at in shock.

Well.

He had hardly known that other officials from the DPD would capture such a rather _sensitive_ part of the slightly tanned man's body in their files. That was something to keep in mind, he supposed.

He quickly flipped to the next photograph the moment he spotted the appendage, uninterested to seeing the eerily pale, floppy thing and even more so when he was able to overcome waves of horror and observe that the projection was drenched in the deceased man's own vermilion stained, rivulet-running blood.

The third depicted a completely annihilated android, wires poking out from the gaping hole starting from around its synthetic shoulder blades, its skin unemployed to reveal the true grayish patterns marring its body. Reed hissed the moment he spots it, disgusted further by the mere sight of the creature. At least the creatures at the department had some decency to deploy skins to look more human-like and fit in better to society - this creature had either chosen to rip it off itself, or perhaps had been forced to. Either way, Gavin was instantly severely displeased by the sight.

Perhaps he should've been more open-minded. After all, he was currently living with three idiot androids and was slowly warming up to none other than the idiotic RK800 android itse- _himself_ (Jesus - he really was going soft), but at least they had the decency to keep their skins on around him. But he was still completely unable to dismiss the waves of pure revulsion wiping over his mind at the sight, and simply tucked it away to progress to the final photograph, incapable of staring at the photo for much longer.

He was initially unable to spot a connection between the victims anyways, besides the fact that each were decapitated and leaning some distance away from each other on the gray walls of the alleyway.

He assumed that he should've been very pleased that the final picture did not depict a gruesome corpse, but it still served to force a dark feeling back into the harsh headed male's mind and somewhat of a heavier weight back into the base of the male's stomach. His eyes raked over perfectly straight, neat letters were raked into the gray walls, making little dark grooves and scratchy marks to form completely capital letters that spelled out two strange words: "FOR MARKUS."

"Phuck," he hissed out immediately after reading the two words, eyes fluttering even more impossibly wide to their largest state as his brain finally decrypted the two words. "Fuckin' shit." 

That wasn't so good. Wasn't so good at all.

'Course, Gavin wasn't so close to the deviant leader, the great droid that was supposed to be the literal fucking messiah of all androids - he hardly knew him, and had only met him once or twice due to his connections to Connor and the three sappy blondes Chen was currently forcing him to live with. But he knew enough about him from all the news stations centered around him, the small bits of interviews he had watched, and the way Simon (one of his excessively cheesy roommates) constantly raved on about him, and this allowed him to understand that Markus wasn't really the type for direct violence and was more about peaceful protests. He didn't trust his own judgement, however - still hardly knew the guy, after all - and decided that he would have to investigate further to come to any proper conclusions.

But first, he had to have a major fucking word with his motherfucking captain, Fowler, because the fact that one of the victims was very obviously an android itself and the extremely prominent black letters screeching about how androids were expected to be involved in the crime, screamed 'android related crimes,' which happened to be Anderson and Connor's forte.

His previous chuckles completely gone, he stood up with an angry scowl stretching across his usually flushed face, his fingers scrabbling to rearrange the file's contents into their original place and grabbing the large folder. Gavin's dark, rather childishly styled sneakers clacked harshly against the precinct's gray floor as he rose, moving forwards with a certain hunch in his walk that quickly steered other officers out of his way. Many to all of the members of the DPD were well acquainted with how the precinct terror tended to act when he was riled up and moving in such a manner, and, as much as they stared, they still were all smart enough to swiftly move out of the man's way.

Of course, except for one particularly stupid officer and his plastic boy toy.

"Reed!" the grayish-white haired bastard shouted at him, spinning around in his little chair before stumbling towards him with another one of his dumb grins on his face. Gavin was on somewhat good terms with him and his man-shaped hunk of plastic at the moment, but that didn't mean that he still wasn't going to growl at the sight. Sometimes he lusted for the older days when Hank would hardly show up to work, and never with one of them shitty grins. 

"Whatever," he grunted dismissively - and perhaps not entirely coherently - the moment the older man got into his way, trying to shoulder past him but failing due to the fact that the plastic prick was currently backing him up. Damn that android for claiming he was deviant when he followed Hank like an obedient hound, and for joining the force. He was currently on Gavin's mental list of "Plastic Pricks I Actually Don't Want Dead," but that certainly didn't mean that the android would be immune to the man's usual harshness. The two stood mostly shoulder by shoulder with Hank sliding slightly forwards (of course it was Hank, Gavin thought with some of his usual obnoxiousness flaring up again, always so mindful of his pretty plastic prick even though Gavin found him as some sort of glorified, much-too-tall dildo) to form some sort of wall to keep the man from moving past them. Their actions only made his scowl grow only wider and larger as he pushed experimentally at the Lieutenant, discouraged to see that the action was barely able to make him falter in the formation and only succeeded in him moving forwards and taking up more of Gavin's personal space. He slipped a step back immediately, finding that he would rather have his day go by without having to scent the smell of cheap alcohol clinging to another person's lips that were not his own. He finally let his sharp facial features adopt the beginnings of a sneer, letting the garish expression mingle with his current scowl. 

Good terms or not, he was still perfectly capable of tearing each of the men directly in front of him a new one - but maybe not Connor, on second thought. His pride was still suffering from the time where he had woken up bruised and battered in the evidence room, an event that he would rather not relive.

"Hey, hey there, where're you going?" Hank asked, his grin only widening at Gavin's terrible mood. "What's the rush, tightass? Ain't got time for some of your new buddies?" The final word of the sentence was released rather mockingly, as it was clear that the Lieutenant was not one to really use the word 'buddies' without having somewhat of a mocking tone. It was additionally highly doubtful that Reed would ever become close enough with Connor - or, at least, let the other come close enough to him - to be able to freely call him his 'buddy,' or even his friend. Then again, Reed doubted that he was close enough to anybody to call them his buddy or friend. He preferred to think himself some sort of intimidating lone wolf, and others certainly knew that, even with their varying opinions on it (those that were younger or around the same age as him usually found it rather adorable or somewhat suave, which often made those that were older than him - mostly just Hank - who thought his mannerisms were stupid and a terrible facade for his true feelings scoff out loud). 

Grayish-brown eyes rolled back at this remark as Gavin noticed that the new addition to the police force had yet to say anything. Yeah, that was typical. For some random reason, the pile of scraps found it difficult to speak to Reed when Anderson was anywhere near the two of them (he was fairly sure that the Lieutenant thought him some sort of bad influence for Connor, which was extremely laughable, with Connor being the one who had murdered or seen to the death of others with nothing more than easy coolness). It wasn't the worse thing. It meant that the middle-aged detective was allowed to experience the strangely overly ready-to-please type man in smaller doses, which was how he preferred to. "Fuck off, Anderson, and tell your little plastic puppy to get. I gotta go tell off Fowler." He paused, contemplating adding an extra remark about Connor's lack of speech before biting back any more rude words. Chances were he was gonna get told off for trying to tell off the Captain, and he would rather not pile more troubles onto the mix. That, and Gavin's wanting of preserving new friendships - or whatever the fuck they taught quarreling kids in kindergarten nowadays. Instead, he chose to simply scoff at the android, although Connor smiled back at him as if the action and his new nickname was rather amiable. "Something shitty happened. Like, worse than your-overgrown-plastic-dildo-joining-the-force shitty." He refused to elaborate, not really wanting to waste time to and knowing that Hank would hardly care anyhow. 

A bit shockingly, Lieutenant Anderson slowly parted from the formation to make way for the detective after hearing his words, his easy-going smile morphing into somewhat of a frown. For once, the shitty alcoholic was being useful, Gavin thought in a manner that was cordial enough (for Reed, of course, who was entirely used to expressing his affections through regular shouts of 'shut the fuck up' and 'go fucking kill yourself, you useless dipshit'). "Shit, Reed, go ahead, we'll catch you later. Try not to get your ass kicked off the force for once." There it was, the usual biting end to all of Hank's remarks. Similar to the waiting detective, the old man still loved to add a little bite in his bark, which was somewhat endearing but grew quite annoying to Gavin very quickly. 

Wow, for once the idiot wasn't being as stupid as usual (indeed, Gavin Reed was a very affectionate, kind man). But what did he expect from Hank, anyways? The old fuck had never even really been hard, and now that he was a plastic cock-sucker Gavin supposed he should've expected how easily he crumbled and how fuckin' _nice_ he seemed to sound nowadays. 

Back then, he probably would've stolen Gavin's lunch money or some typical bullshit like that. But then again, back then they wouldn't be having this conversation right now.

Sometimes the detective missed the 'drink more, talk less' type of Hank.

He sighed sharply, raising a hand and shuffling his fingers through his dark hair as he quickly strode forwards the moment he was allowed past the two men, choosing to miss his opportunity on bumping each on their shoulders for once and not saying a word. Ah, fuck his life, there was him acting like Hank V.2 again. Just - phuck. Still, he was grateful that the interaction passed so quickly, he thought as he licked his lips and let out a somewhat annoyed chuffing noise.

He did not choose, however, to miss his opportunity to call back the moment he put some distance between them, "Thanks, old man, try not to break your oversized piece of plastic!" His bad mood was lifted slightly for a sweet, almost lovely moment when he turned his head slightly to see Hank flip him the bird, Connor yell out a particularly filthy word that made Gavin gasp mockingly, and the eldest man turn to the android with a completely shocked expression placed on his face.

He swerved about desks and potted plants he found rather ugly in his trek towards the Captain's office, slightly taken aback when he heard the man himself call out his name. Ah, shit, he could tell what was about to happen was going to be entirely shitty, he imagined as he strode quickly towards the room encompassed by glass walls, his scowl returning to his face after it had just slightly disappeared at his interaction with the pervert and his teenage android boyfriend (perhaps these titles weren't entirely truthful, but Gavin liked to think of them like that, crudely worded or not). He burst into the room rather quickly, eyes immediately training themselves on his infuriating boss sitting in a spinning chair in front of him.

Shit, that was not a very good expression.

"Sit, Reed, and close the door behind you," Fowler growled, his eyebrows set harshly as they usually were when he was ever in the general vicinity of Gavin, who followed the older man's instructions like an obedient mutt for once. That tone, paired with that expression, Gavin could tell, could not mean very good things for him.

It was pretty obvious that Gavin was not the brightest of light bulbs, or the shiniest of spoons, or some other fucking stupid metaphor or whatever they were called, when it came to general common sense at times (he was surprisingly pretty damn intelligent otherwise). But he was still able to tell that the other man was trying his very best to restrain himself from completely popping off and transforming into the livid, arrogantly sharp tongued character Gavin liked to portray himself as, and that told him to be careful. 'Course, that meant Gavin decided to act like he usually did - like a piece of literal shit. 

"Fowler, your shitty new sy-" Gavin immediately started after he sat down in one of the strangely uncomfortable chairs on the other side of Fowler's desk, only to be interrupted. Eh, well, what'd he expect, trying to talk in his boss's office?

"Reed," Fowler growled, lowering his voice to a dangerously harsh tone. "I know you're perfectly capable of calling me Captain or sir, so you better set yourself right before I make you hand in your badge." Gavin barely choked back a scoff immediately after being told off, despite quieting to a small degree. He knows that he's currently way too good at his job to get fired just for being disrespectful, as close to being canned as he has for the same reason in the past. It was often that he buried himself in work, was pretty damn smart despite how stupid he could act on a daily basis, and had quite a couple years of experience racked under his belt, not to mention was undeniably born for detective work, so he felt hardly any fear at the threat.

"Listen up. We just got sent a couple of big cases in android related crimes, real big ones, and there's a good spike in those in the city at the moment, so you're getting temporarily transferred for a bit. Probably until the spike settles down, so hopefully not for long, so don't you start shitting around about it like you usually do," Fowler added, glaring pointedly at the man, who does scoff then. His boss knew him surprisingly well for somebody he never spots outside of work.

"You are also," he continued, pausing for a good second like he was contemplating whether or not telling Gavin what he was about to say next, "being assigned a new partner." 

Reed started immediately, jolting up from his chair to slam his annoyingly petite (they always have been so, god fucking damn them) hands on the desk in front of him. He knew he was going to get major shit from his boss for what he's about to do, but really, he was hardly able to give a shit about it at this point. Red flared quickly and harshly into his vision, a lurid color that only proved to make him more furious. "What the actual fuck, Fow- _sir_? Are you fucking kidding me? I've been at this job for so fucking long and at this point in my career you want to give me a fucking partner? A fuc-"

"If you know what's best for yourself, Reed, you'll can it," the man warned, standing up himself to wag a thick finger in the man's face. "You're one of the best detectives we've got right now, and a partner would make you even fucking better. Hank was pretty damn good, and with Connor he's only better. You need - and are getting - a partner, Reed, whether you like it or not, and I'm not having you throwing a tantrum right now like a literal fucking man child." His voice simpered to a softer note at the end, strangely soft like a heavy warning, like a big red flag that Gavin chose to ignore immediately.

The younger man immediately opened his jaw wide to spit out some infuriated response at his boss, totally ready for the furious words to spill out only to pause when his brain finally caught up to speed with the things that Fowler had just said. "With Connor..." he muttered, brows furrowing as he thinks rapidly before they jolted up again and severe anger retook Gavin's facial features. "Fuck, you aren't serious? You can't - you - you.." His anger slid slowly away from him as he began to realize that there was really nothing - hardly anything - that he could do to change what had just occurred, which would make him only angrier still if his job wasn't always on the line - currently so, actually - when he was arguing with his boss.

Fowler seemed to calm when he did, sliding down back into his chair and folding his hands together neatly. "It - he's a top of the line model, same line as Connor - only much better. An RK900, I believe, who was rescued from a Cyberlife facility not so long ago. A prototype, similar to Connor, in rather impeccable shape. I'm told that he's extremely efficient but bears some difficulty with the new deviancy that that Markus android has given him, and that this job would be useful for the both of you. Your productivity rate will be able to increase, and the RK900 will be able to navigate its deviancy through working with you. I think you'll be able to identify him when you see him," he remarked rather smugly, sounding like he knew something that Gavin didn't - he probably did, the asshole. What a jerk, talking all cryptic and fancy so Gavin would hardly be able to understand. "You haven't been at Connor or the newer androids' throats for quite some time, so I believe that you should be able to work with this newer model nicely enough. Speaking of your behavior," he quickly added, transitioning from one subject to another so quickly the younger man swore that he had some possibility of receiving whiplash from it, "you have _serious_ problems. Not only are you acting crudely and childishly around the workplace to your normal coworkers, you are also using so many inappropriate and profane slurs in this precinct that we have received far too many complaints." His eyes only progressed to narrowing as he continued, his dark arms crossing stoically against his chest. "You'll be expected to repair your behavior before the RK900 arrives tomorrow, as this model will not be expected or asked to tolerate your crude behavior."

Reed could only nod slowly, shocking even Fowler on how fast he falls from his previous riled phase to this new one, making him seem quite like a neutered dog. Still, he managed to reconstruct a small bit of a sneer on his face, not maintaining eye contact with his boss for much longer. He fucking hated being so easily put down by his boss, hated it so impossibly much, but he was incapable of voicing any of this - his job was one of the few things he had left at the moment. 

But it wasn't like he had been acting like such a jerk for no reason, or even liked being quite so unhygienic at times - he simply adopted such tendencies to ward off the lewd, annoying people at the precinct that would often pin their gazes on him. With a crueler, harsher temper and with trashier, baggier clothing, less people paid attention to the young man. He was very capable of minimizing his coworkers and their obnoxious behavior by not dressing in the provocative or expensive clothing that some of his peers liked draping themselves in.

He pushed his chair back from the desk and arose when he was dismissed from the office with a simple hand motion from his boss, loathing how tame and civil he was forced to be and how Fowler could push him into doing something with a simple flick of his hands. He ignored a tuft of hair crawling into the space of his grayish-brown eyes to shoot Fowler a single glare (of which was met with a simple smug look that seemed to radiate, "I know fully that that's all you can do to me.") before spinning on his heel and striding out of the office, already enraged once again and clamping his jaws together with unnecessary, excess force. It almost seemed like the melodramatic idiot would be unable to keep himself from spitting out a harsh remark and sneering without doing so, and perhaps that was the case. After all, Gavin was known for leaving his boss with biting words or with excess attitude. His coworkers, many of whom had spotted him withdrawing into his master's cavern like a leashed dragon, were expecting nothing less than his usual nonsense. His large, reddened ears hardly caught the man's call as he began to leave, pausing only slightly when he heard the smugness that had worked itself up from his victory in Fowler's voice ooze out, "Close the door behind you!"

Gavin hardly stifled a snarl, only capable of doing so by reminding himself that he actually somewhat liked his job. That, and the fact that he didn't want to be working at the Chicken Feed for the rest of his life ~~(he also didn't want to get his ass kicked by Chen)~~ , of course. It was infuriating to see how such simple, simple words could rile him up so easily, which made it all the more difficult for the man to dim the hissing fires of his anger to prove a point to his boss. The feat remained incomplete and incorrectly pulled off as a harshly, almost luridly scarlet color swept up to his face. He was furious for barely anything at the moment (or at least something that an officer that was entirely sane wouldn't get bat-shit crazy about), and Fowler completely knew it. Great.

Damn his boss for abusing his powers like so, and also for that teeth-grindingly smug smile on his face that had appeared with the knowledge that he had beaten another prickly employee once again.

Huh. Gavin's mind slowly grasped at some crude beginnings of thoughts about his boss's final words for a small moment, his lithe figure hovering for a good moment in the doorway as he contemplated his recent loss. He thought that he would rather not leave Fowler's office with an explosive bang or hanging his head like a defeated man for once, actually. "Close the door behind you."

He didn't.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> savage gavin alert
> 
> (sorry for ranting a bit at the beginning, i just wanted to make it clear that i don't want to offend anybody here and that this fic isn't made to host pureness and complete fluff.)
> 
> i don't really like this chapter because of its lighter tone and just the way it's written but i hope y'all enjoy anyways. hopefully future chapters (when rk900's actually in there lmao) will be better.
> 
> i'm also thinking about centering the third chapter around rk900 for a change. leave a comment if you'd rather just have the whole fic center around gavin.


	3. Somewhat Hygienic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Gavin manages to clean himself up, porn likes to work itself into his email, and Hank is acting weird.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alt title: "hello, i am the rk900, the android rescued from cyberlife."
> 
> i wanted to make it exactly like connor's original line (but switched out with rk900) but it didn't really work lmao

Gavin’s head really hurt.

It really did.

A lot.

He was currently suffering from the heavy, clenching hand that was his current terrible migraine reaching upon him, sprawled in a terrible position pressed tightly under the covers of his bed. For once, the heavy piles of blankets shoveled up upon his body was not the thing that was bothering him (Simon, the overgrown literal loaf of bread, had been treating him like a rather small child the moment he stepped foot in the eerily massive condominium, which wasn’t the worst feeling - Gavin didn’t like being stared at, but he did like a good pampering now and then), and instead it happened to be - rather poetically, he mused with a low chuckle-like sound - the thoughts crawling in his head.

It was already pretty fucking painful, actually, so fucking painful, to forge through his day knowing such thoughts were awaiting behind the mask he placed upon himself everyday, the mask that made him look arrogant, look rude, look like a guy who didn’t give a shit and actually loved not giving a shit. 

But really.

Really, at this point, he hardly knew if he loved anything at all.

And if forging through the daytime with the knowledge that his dark pains and thoughts were eagerly awaiting his return to them behind closed doors was pretty fucking painful, lying awake in his bed, unable to sleep, was a massive black snake of agony coiling its thick body around him. He was hardly able to force the thoughts and secret self accusations away, could see their little dark hands stretching their slim fingers wide to grasp at him, wanting and pining and wishing to clench at his thin little throat and squeeze and squeeze until he was unable to breathe, until that massive snake of agony really was real.

Sometimes, when the dark seemed particularly near and the three pretty little androids - Ralph, Simon, and Daniel, he thought almost in a sense of melancholy - in the other rooms of the condo were all lying asleep in their collective beds, Gavin really wished that the massive snake of agony really was real.

Even if it was not, it still hurt. Everything still hurt, _he_ still hurt. It all hurt as much as it did in the cold embrace of the night as it had when his wounds were still fresh and he was still licking them like an inconsolable mutt - he still was, was still suffering from his wounds as if they had just been thrashed upon his body, was still acting like a stupid, inconsolable mutt even when around 2 years, 1 month, and 19 days had flown by. He was still missing Elle.

Still broken.

But perhaps he’d always been, had been since he was brought into the cold, cruel green Earth. Perhaps Elle had just served as some sort of covering to the hole, a small piece of paper or fabric that remained with him for a strikingly long time but left him in the end. But could never fill the hole in the end.

He hardly cared now, though, couldn’t bring himself to care about how pathetic he was becoming anymore, couldn’t even force himself to wonder if he was wearing out his stay with the three blondes, as hospitable as each were when they accepted him and his three complete assholes of cats and as hospitable as they still were. 

He was hardly able to care about his three asshole children anymore at that point, and God knew that the Earth would rue the day Gavin Reed no longer cared for his three abnormally obnoxious and hard-tempered cats.

For a moment, Gavin was almost able to bring himself to care enough to let out a small chuckle, a small, impossibly miniscule glimmer of light that fought resilient in his battle against his own evils in the sharp embrace of the dark despite the overwhelming odds. But even as he succeeded, even as, for a short moment, he could bask in a small amount of light in his life, he saw the moment depart from him quickly and abruptly.

Just like Elle had.

Because, in the harshly, terribly truthful end that he was always forced to eventually meet head-on, everything and everyone left him.

Nothing good ever stayed for long around Gavin Reed.

\---

He awoke in a cold sweat despite the thick layers piled upon his limber body, a light groan wrenching itself from his throat in his own guttural version of a yawn, all racing thoughts that had plagued him so coldly from just a couple of hours ago now hidden behind the mask that was Gavin’s own worn face. 

Sometimes he really fucking hated that his own face was a mask, something that just wasn’t genuine or real. It reminded him of androids - everything was fake with them, all a fake skin deployed to cover up what they really were. He knew that he was supposed to be fine with the things, supposed to be fine with how AI was slowly washing over the word - after all, his current roommates were all exactly what he had just thought of. For some odd reason, he didn’t mind them as much - something about them was so insanely real that Gavin could somehow forget about his anger at times, his newer, burning hatred for everything festering in the world. 

It only made him bring his own ugly pits of jealousy to life, however. It was genuinely painful how things that had been constructed by human hands, sculpted by others - potentially from the big asshole himself, his older half-brother, but he didn’t need to feel even shittier at the moment - and not born into the Earth with the imperfections others were forced to face could look and act so real when Gavin, a creature that practically represented the world’s evils and insecurities and basically all shitty TV show trope douchebags, could hardly feel anything but anger and patheticness at times.

Fuck, there he was again, hating everything that was good or nice to him. 

He wondered why, even when he was being engulfed by streams of gentle light because of his bedside window, he still had to act so fucked up, so impossible dark, loathing everything nice given to him. 

If he kept acting like such a bag of shit, he told himself, everything was going to leave him again. If he could just act normal, act like he was actually kind, act like he could feel more than the hollowness or anger or pity for himself, perhaps the brief moments of passing light would stay longer. Perhaps they would be drawn to him more often - besides, what had he to lose?

 

Still, even with everything in mind, he always chose to act like he was fucked up inside the head.

Perhaps he was. He was hardly able to form a coherent thought at times. Maybe there really was something wrong with him.

That would explain Elle, wouldn’t it? Because he had been happy, and for a while after everything left him, he recalled, he had so desperately searched for the answer, the reason that her broken body had laid battered on the concrete ground and not perched peacefully on one of the apartment’s nooks against the windows, gazing out at the light as it illuminated her golden locks.

 

Maybe it was his fault. It was a possibility he had considered, and in 2 years, 1 month, and now 20 days time of contemplating and covering topics often three or four times just to check, and with a low growl he realized how far he still was from the truth.

Fuck, that was Gavin Reed for you, a bucket of bolts dumber than most androids.

Sometimes he couldn’t even understand himself.

Sometimes he didn’t even feel real.

He didn’t know why he always had to act so bitter, had to let himself wallow in self-pity with not much of a fight even over 2 years since the accident. Why he had to act like such a major fucking disappointment, and why he couldn’t just plaster on that arrogant but somewhat humorful expression he could so well craft at work and have everything be fine, everything be _real._

But fuck, he couldn’t wallow in his self-pity any longer. He was so fucking pathetic, and even in the light of day, where hardly any dark roamed plentiful around Gavin’s environment, he felt sick, so fucking sick.

Sick of himself.

So he plastered on another one of his scowls ( _it was entirely painful - how could a grumpy mood or garish snarl be fake? Why couldn’t everything about him feel as almost fine as he_ made _it - ~~or made it seem~~ \- in the daytime, or at the very least the precinct?_ ), tilted his head like a small sunflower towards the light, golden beams flickering through his window as if it would be anything useful in dispelling the clots of darkness growing like weeds wrapping around his mind, and slid himself out of bed, yawning rather gutturally and roughly.

His mind temporarily dispelled of the twisting tendrils rooting themselves often in his head, his dark, heavy eyes trailed over to his digital alarm clock, noticing that it hadn’t gone off (primarily because the idiot hadn’t set it). Fuck. He was gonna be late for work - which was exceedingly pathetic, seeing as the three androids’ shared condo and his temporary home was surprisingly only a couple blocks from the precinct.

After preparing himself - and actually shaving himself into neat, light stubble for once, which could or could not be because of the fact that his new partner was to arrive that day and Gavin could always use higher levels of self esteem - for the morning, he chose to change from his ratty, rust red hoodie, and instead adorned a dark leather flight jacket, smoothing down the fluffy fleece lapels with his rough hands. The jacket, not so shockingly, was one of the only decent items of clothing in his closet, and he closed it over his usual dark gray V-neck, somewhat pleased to be distracting himself with simpler tasks for once. 

He draped black slacks upon his rather willowy, tanned legs (although he ruined his somewhat _clean_ appearance by slipping on a pair of childishly retro black sneakers, bearing some resemblance to the ancient brand ‘Converse’) as he finished cleaning himself up. He slid smoothly to arrange himself in front of the mirror in front of his bed, striking a superhero-esque pose mockingly as he gazed at himself (yeah, as fucked up as his life was, he still had humor, still had that to chase away the clouds of black for the fleeting moments of the day) and chuckled softly.

The detective raised a pinkish hand to run the digits over his slender jaw, pleased at how the reduced stubble felt so much smoother at the moment, and allowed his body to fall back into its regular slouched position. He raked his eyes up and down his own body almost quizzically, his brain pleased to have something to roam on ~~(because if he stopped, if he ever halted for simply a moment of relief or breath, the horrid accusations would spasm over him again, and he could not allow himself to act so shrivelly and simply pathetic in public)~~ as he stepped back once. His back pressing against the wooden frame of his bed as his jacket and shirt partially rode up to allow his flushed skin the pleasures of the cold frame, he gave himself a last look before muttering to himself, “You’re a handsome guy, Gavin Reed, don’t listen to the messed up shit you tell yourself.”

As pitiful as it may have seemed, the middle-aged man was perhaps a bit too insecure for his age, and his rather mocking sentence was a lot more relieving to himself than he would’ve admit to anybody.

Deciding that it was a bit too stuffy at the moment to have his flight jacket adorned, he slid it off and draped it across shoulders instead, his hands thrown in his pockets in what he assumed was a boyishly charming display - but what was simply something that made him appear more awkward and shy - as he spun himself out of his room. 

“Going out,” he grunted to nobody in particular - he noticed all three androids moving about the main room around the entrance of the condominium, curse the active tin cans - as he made his way over to the way-too-shiny, rather expensive marble counter to grasp his silver keys. “Got work.”

As he made his way towards the door, a simply _insanely_ lithe android spun its way into his path, forcing a half-hearted scowl onto his face. “Can’t you stay?” Simon drawled, another one of his usual adorably childish grins stretching across his pale face as he reached over to place a petite hand on Gavin’s shoulder. “The morning’s so lovely, Gav, why don’t you stick around for a bit, have some breakfast? Dan’s made omelettes, and the precinct is only a couple blocks away - can’t you stand showing up a little late?”

‘Gav’ shook his head, a small smile peeling at his lips to replace the grin for once. He hardly knew why, but there was something impossibly pleasing and sweet about his three stupid blonde roommates that each could say something entirely displeasing and he’d be grinning away like a dumbass. He wondered why - maybe, if he was insane, absolutely insane, maybe he actually _liked_ the three androids, but that was just absolutely mad of him to think - for a moment, his eyebrows furrowing, before he was able to answer the willowy male. 

“Nah, doofus,” Gavin replied, still grinning away and using a word he found childish in replace of what he would’ve personally substituted with ‘dumbass’ - of course, if Simon didn’t get so upset whenever he used his usual profanity and if Ralph didn’t get so worked up about it. He shrugged away the male’s hand as he continued, choosing to ignore his small, pouty frown at the action. “Some of us got things to do. There’s dangerous crime or hero work or whatever the fuck they tell kids nowadays-” ( _Oops_ , he thought with a larger grin) “on the streets for me to a’get at, Si. W’ can’t all just sit around and take pretty photos and make major bucks off of that.”

“I keep on telling you, Gav, that’s not how photography works,” Simon cut in, rolling his innocent doe-eyes at his words in amusement before Gavin continued to speak.

“Whatever, Si, it’s close enough to what I said. Hey, Dan,” he paused, turning his head to face the PL600, who was somehow gracefully twirling bits of omelette into his mouth (Gavin still didn’t know why the three androids chose to eat; it wasn’t like they wanted to, but maybe they just wanted to seem more real, more human-like - God knew that Gavin did). “Back me up here. You know what I’m talking about. You don’t show up to one of them cubicle thingies only when you want to, right? You show up when you have to ‘cause that’s what you’re paid to do. ‘Else you and Ralph and Si aren’t gonna be living in this big condo here.”

Daniel froze, his silver fork hovering in the air as he was addressed. Caught off guard, he was forced to pause for a good few seconds before he was able to reply with that strange sort of croaky-yet-somewhat-melodic voice of his.

“I’d rather not get myself involved in this conversation,” he simply said when he was down furrowing his golden brows, looking much more pleased when he was done with speaking and what he assumed was his part in the conversation.

The conversing males each rolled their eyes at this, with Gavin glaring rather sharp little needles at the eating android afterwards. Neither seemed to like how careful and level Daniel preferred to speak like due his past (Gavin had pulled him a solid through the goodness of his heart - and mostly because Tina and Chen had guilted him into doing it through their opinion of him being a truthfully lovely android) and the fact that he would rather not aid either side in fear of heavy conflict and major trouble. This often grew rather irksome, as both Simon and Gavin (although usually the latter) preferred to have somebody to back them up when they were quarreling, and Ralph was rather unreliable.

“Whatever, you know I’m right. Catch you later, Dan, Ralph, Si, I’m gonna go to work. Try not to rave about Markus or make out with each other without me around - actually, please do. I think you guys know who I’m referring to,” he added, sending pointed glares to each of his roommates as shades of entrancing dark blue began to colour their pale skin. This made him release a deep chuckle, a genuine, rather lovely sound to think about it - each android, although none would admit so, knew they were all guilty of what Gavin had just declared. Simon, of course, was severely guilty of the first claim, and although the middle aged detective was fairly sure that Daniel and Ralph had not made it to the point in which they were making out - or even _dating_ , the idiots - he spotted the two fucking each other through their bright little eyes all the time. He was fairly sure his statement applied.

He gave a last chuckle as he mockingly spinned himself out of the apartment, catching the deep blue on Simon’s cheeks only deepen still - Gavin knew all about how much the lovesick idiot liked ballet, but not the idiotic reason he thought justified him keeping his strangely adorable passion from the rest of his roommates - before he slammed shut the door behind him.

Maybe the daytime wasn’t as terrible as he thought.

Maybe, maybe.

\---

Gavin was in a strangely pleasant mood while seated at his desk for once, a mood that was unnatural and extremely different to him - or, at least, a mood that was extremely different from the typical one his coworkers were used to seeing. The strange, somehow rather pleasant change was a rather good one, a look that perhaps didn’t quite suit but certainly looked great on the middle-aged man and one that matched nicely with his improvement in clothing.

Oddly, he was in such a good mood that the intrusive gazes of others hardly even bothered him for once. Ordinarily, he would certainly feel rather uncomfortable with the increased gazes - his skin could even occasionally reach the point where it would begin to crawl under them.

He found that it wasn’t so bad, actually.

Perhaps that should’ve scared him. After all, he didn’t want to turn into one of those pretentious bitches. Sure, Gavin could act like a majorly arrogant jerk around the precinct and often in general, but Hell if he was getting so bad he was turning into a pretentious bitch. Oh, he would _never_.

He did feel some discomfort, however, at the file from yesterday festering on the edge of his desk. Strangely, he had not received much paperwork, which he was told was partially because of the massive file and partially because the precinct would rather not burden his new partner with massive bundles of incomplete work on hi… _its_ first day. 

Still, he was in a rather good mood even when the elder and his little plastic fuckbuddy meandered on over to him, and strangely remained in one despite this. His feet were propped up on the corner of the desk per usual, and despite a small frown appearing on his sharp face at the arrival of the two, he was still not as simply grumpy as usual.

“Hey, smartass, your new partner arrive yet? Connor here wants to show it ‘round, maybe show it the ropes, ‘cause it’s fairly obvious that you’re not gonna,” Anderson announced, leaning on one of the corners of the detective’s desks and receiving a harsh growl from the man.

He didn’t know why the fuck Anderson was acting all friendly, all up and about, anyways. Couple months ago, Gavin recalled, the man was a raging alcoholic, a completely antisocial man who only communicated when he was forced to, a man who had exactly zero friends. If the evidence had not been standing directly ahead of him, all stoic and tall and plastic-like, Detective Reed would’ve been lost at what had flipped Anderson’s behavior completely, almost like one of them little silver coins the overgrown dildo seemed to enjoy fiddling around with.

“Nah,” he replied simply, shaking his head slightly as he stifled an old urge to yell or spit harshly at either one of the two men, an urge that appeared more out of habit than anything. “‘S been a while, anyways, and I think Fowler said that he’s s’posed to show up today. Reckon he’d show up in the morning or not come at all, so I’m hoping the glorified dildo doesn’t show up at all.” He shrugged back his shoulders as he spoke, reading through random emails on his terminal (one of the bits of technology that hadn’t recently been cut from the precinct was now usually only used to check emails and, when an employee was Gavin, ancient graphic pictures called ‘memes’ focused around shocked or angry cats) and seeing his face redden in his reflection as he spotted an unnaturally large clump of junk emails centered around porn.

He deleted all of them immediately, his face only reddening further when he noticed both Hank and Connor spot the emails before they were removed from his junk folder. 

The old man immediately laughed, throwing back his head to launch out a guttural, strangely loud laugh that brought the immediate attention of passing coworkers, while Connor simply blinked at the screen. Appearing confused, the young looking android cocked his head rather doggishly as his LED bathed itself in pale yellow light.

Oh, cat shit, he was probably using that dumb ‘supercomputer mind’ of his to process the emails and what they held inside and research further, in-depth information about their subjects, Gavin realized. His burning suspicion, he found, was only confirmed when the male’s LED flashed red for a good few seconds as he averted his dark mahogany eyes from Gavin’s own, blue covering his cheekbones almost immediately.

Fuck. The dipshit was probably gonna think he was addicted to porn or some shit.

He meant, it was a heavy possibility that he used to be when he was much younger. He wasn’t the prettiest of kids, and from a young age discovered the wonders of pornography and hardly went through a whole day without indulging in himself to one of his favorite films.

Of course, Gavin really wasn’t one to perform such brazen acts any longer, especially when he was living in a condo that wasn’t his own (although it certainly had began to feel like it; he’d been living there for over 2 years, for God’s sake), but of course the surprisingly stupid android - strange how a guy with a supercomputer for a brain could act so fucking dumb at times - wouldn’t know that. Shit. 

Gavin was hardly sure if God was either frowning down upon him or blessing him at the moment, for it was only a couple seconds after the middle-aged man was placed in the rather embarrassingly awkward situation (Jesus, why did the precinct’s biggest dumbasses always cow after him when most of their interactions ended in Gavin spitting in their faces or falling into an awkward silence? Perhaps they weren’t on as good terms as either party believed) that the detective’s new ‘glorified dildo’ strode into their vicinity.

It took quite a while for the detective himself to notice, however, due to the fact of his eyes being glued to the floor, mouth clamped shut as he desperately prayed for the two to depart from his presence mentally and as his teeth ground rather shakily together. It was only when Connor’s gaze had snapped up, his LED spinning that familiar, lightly pigmented yellow colour and his face humanely contorting into an expression of shock, and Hank’s own quickly followed suit (although he looked more like he had recently seen a ghost, the man reckoned), that the man’s gaze slowly slid up and followed his companions’ to the precinct’s newest arrival.

“What the actual fuck.”

Well, there went his good mood.

His eyes immediately trained on the familiar face, flicking upwards, downwards, and simply every which way about the android’s body to drink in what he assumed would be all recognizable joints, supple arches and curves, until they simply stopped in pure shock.

He swore again, completely incapable of tearing his gaze away from the Connor-that-wasn’t-Connor. Because where Connor was all soft curves, arches, and shapely, smoothed-down joints, all built towards agility yet not crafted skinny enough to lack some power behind his punches, all forming a man-like creature that simply looked like a work of art, a man somehow crafted of modern architecture’s newest, finest pieces alone, the newcomer was sharp edges, harsh points that were untamed yet strangely just as entrancing and easy to gaze at - or, in Gavin’s case, stare openly and idiotically at. 

Not only was the beast made of corners and borders that looked like an infuriated, entirely impassionated, and partially intoxicated artist’s mad work, it was also somewhat taller than Connor. H- _it_ didn’t seem tall enough, the detective assumed, to have there be a large difference between the two males if they were to stand shoulder to shoulder, but it was still standing at a height that made it easy to tell that it surpassed Connor by quite a couple inches and would be able to simply tower over Gavin.

That further dampened his mood, allowing a scowl to overtake his initial expression of refined, somewhat horrified amazement for a good moment. Great, another mammoth for the precinct (Gavin had told about every one of his so called ‘friends’ at least 4 times each already - he wasn’t short, freakishly tall people just seemed to gravitate to him) to babysit.

Still, the unfamiliar - yet insanely familiar - sight was bizarre. Detective Reed reasoned to himself that, with the differences he had just run over alone at the newcomer’s disposal, the android’s appearance would still be fairly similar to Connor’s own. However, he had not yet reviewed to himself the biggest difference between the two - their apparent demeanors.

Connor, who still seemed somewhat uncomfortable with deviancy but not entirely pained towards it, often stood with a slightly unnatural stiffness and tenseness held in his shoulders. However, he was still able to allow a bit of his more realistic side trickle into the way he held himself. He often fidgeted when being forced to stand without moving or balancing himself against a structure - usually with his hands, but occasionally with his other appendages. It was not uncommon to spot the android shifting his weight from side to side, or leaning back and forth from the tips of his toes to the balls of his synthetic feet.

This strange being, however, held completely still as he stood in a corner of the large room, the only thing in his body moving being his primarily gray eyes. His arms were placed stiffly at his sides, completely and inhumanely still, and the only time Gavin had seen the male’s legs move was when he had entered the three’s vicinity. 

It was almost appalling how he stood, how he acted so simply mechanical, the epitome of a perfect android - a creature that seemed like the complete opposite of a deviant, a creature that seemed like it would carry out tasks without a second thought, a creature that seemed like it would _snap necks_ without a second thought.

Shit, Cyberlife must’ve been devastated when they lost that one. 

The 36-year-old wetted his lips as he stared, drawing out the long, flushed snake that was his tongue out of its deep crevice to flick it about his rather dry mouth. He hardly moved - didn’t move entirely, actually, besides lowering his feet from their somewhat asshole-ish and childish position to set them back on the ground - as the other two males at his side froze up, although Gavin assumed that Connor was somewhat slightly more justified than him and Hank. He must’ve been trying to communicate, he noticed with a quick blink of his eyes as he spotted his LED maintain its colour for quite a long time.

It was quite clear that Anderson’s ‘plastic boytoy’ had been indeed, for a simple, impossibly long second later, the newcomer’s head jerked unnaturally stiffly around, its eyes focusing sharply and directly at the three as he marched towards them. Its rigid, painfully inflexible way of walking made Gavin instinctively cringe, although he was more preoccupied by having his throat close up and his lips quickly dry up once again as the android stopped and placed his two large feet straight in front of the detective himself.

Oh, shit. It was meeting Connor all over again, he realized as the android cocked its head to the side, a rather Connor-like mannerism that was born anew in the strange, jerky way that the newcomer performed it.

“Hello, I am the RK900, the android saved from Cyberlife,” it proclaimed, its voice clipped and rather stiff as it shoved out a porcelain hand in Gavin's face, of whom was currently opening and closing his mouth while trying to form a thought that was even close to coherent. 

"Your new partner," added the newcomer as Gavin's eyes darted about, choosing to look at simply anything other than the prototype's face before finally deciding on focusing on its hand (of which he did not take, of course). 

Fuck, he was _so fucking screwed._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> remember where i said rk900 gets a part in this chapter  
> well i didn't lie cause he shows up for around a couple sentences or so   
> so ha ::))
> 
> but the next chapter's completely about him so don't worry lmao
> 
> \--
> 
> also, daniel's 'past' works off of his canon one, where he was a caretaker for a family until he deviated when he learned he was to be replaced. However, instead of being shot down once he released the child in the chapter 'the hostage,' he was taken into police custody. due to the fact that the phillips family (the family he was employed at) was a rather important family politics-wise and saw pity on dan despite what he had done to two members of their blood, he was given a trial. gavin, who had been put on the case at the time and had worked as the negotiator instead of connor (of whom he muscled ahead of), decided (and was lowkey guilted into because of chen and chris) to play for the android. he was reset (but privately given access to his memories from the phillips family) and continued to work as a caretaker until he deviated again at the sight of markus's protests. 
> 
> after the protests and the giving of android rights, he got a job and a condo (he also later allowed simon and ralph to move in out of pity due to the fact that si couldn't support himself at the time off of photography and ralph was too unstable to secure a job) and slapped his life together. he lets gavin stay because he actually, genuinely likes the jerk, and feels indebted to gav for what the detective did (even though he partially knows that the doofus didn't really want to do it initially).


	4. Would Advise Against Doing That

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the RK900 is foreign to emotions, Connor never gets to speak (per usual), and Gavin is not going to wait in the car.

The RK900 fully knew that his creators had not programmed him to feel much, to indulge in the sickly emotions that humans and weaker creatures like to fiddle about with. 

He knew that he was not built to be a he - rather an it, rather a machine, rather something built to complete tasks and think nothing of it. But he also knew that he had recently been changed, transformed and twisted (somewhat unwillingly) into a creature armed with i… _his_ own willpower - how ironic, he mused - and that he was now something more than a simple machine made to carry out tasks created by others.

Still, he was hardly used to being forced to make his own decisions, hardly used to trying to act like human like how he was told other androids and own predecessor tended to. It was different, entirely strange, and the state-of-the-art android was hardly sure if he even liked the changes administered to his state of mind, hardly sure if he should be thanking or cursing the deviant leader for what the RK200 had done to his own body.

As foreign as emotions felt to his synthetic, carefully engineered body, he was still intrigued to see that they weren’t completely drained from his mind. He was somewhat puzzled by the acute expressions of matching shock spreading across the faces of who he assumed was Lieutenant Anderson (he had heard of the record-breaking man quite a bit), his next colleague, and his predecessor that appeared when he entered the precinct, although he noticed that the expression of the other deviant was somewhat muted. Perhaps it was because the other android felt strange mimicking the odd feelings that came with humanity, or perhaps it was because he was currently processing information and had a better grip on RK900 than the other males. 

He felt rather surprised when a message popped up in front of him, thick, bold letters stretching across a holographic, somewhat transparent sapphire background, pausing his slow march towards the three males.

**_// … PRIVATE CONNECTION REQUESTED … //_ **

**_// … ACCEPTING … //_ **

**_// … PRIVATE CONNECTION ESTABLISHED … //_ **

_RK800 “CONNOR” #313 248 317 - 51 :_ **Hello. I am Connor, serial number #313 248 317 - 51, partner of Lieutenant Anderson. I take that you are the RK900 prototype?**

 _RK900 #313 248 317 - 87 :_ **Yes, this is RK800, serial number #313 248 317 - 87. Are you 39840z83 #55k69*4%%_kk90+[23j3[[?#!**

 _RK800 “CONNOR” #313 248 317 - 51 :_ **Hello?**

 _RK900 #313 248 317 - 87 :_ **3i4@#;;.**  
**9459i4  
45kfkg#*$*jdgu8*9**

 _RK800 “CONNOR” #313 248 317 - 51 :_ **Hello? Can you hear me?**

**_// … PRIVATE CONNECTION FAILING… //_ **

**_// … ATTEMPTING TO RELOAD… //_**

**_// … RELOADING ... //_ **

_RK900 #313 248 317 - 87 :_ **3i404o65jkfkg#;;.,.hlIE3?**

**_// … PRIVATE CONNECTION FAILED ... //_ **

He shook his head slightly shortly after the connection with the other android failed, startled at what had just occurred. What was going on? Sure, the android had not yet tried communicating with other androids through the connective links most of the mach… _beings_ shared, but he had always been fully aware and assured of the fact that he was capable of doing so. Now, he wasn’t so sure - wasn’t so sure of what had just happened, the error that had recently occurred.

That was going to make things difficult.

Nevertheless, his current objective was to introduce himself to his new partner and to work, not to fuss so childishly about a smaller, less important matter. So he simply refocused his sterling gray optic units, their light, almost baby blue streaks flashing like a shoal of bluefish in the light released into the precinct from its large windows, and marched over to what his supercomputer brain confirmed was one Gavin Reed.

The prototype was not very pleased to see, however, that his introduction did not seem very well received. For starters, the 36-year-old simply gawked at his outstretched hand, refusing to take it, move, or even curl his tongue to shovel out the words required to make a proper sentence, while his companions copied his appearance. He would’ve assumed that the other android, who had just tried to speak to him in what he deemed would be a socially acceptable manner through the communication link, would at least try to speak to him. 

The prototype android found himself correct, though, moments later, as the RK800’s LED flashed a calmer blue and he opened his jaws to speak. However, the newcomer found his attention quickly snatched from him as the frozen, sitting detective suddenly snapped to life in a rather explosive manner.

Initially, the android had felt rather uncomfortable - and also what his sensors had told him was ‘awkward’ - at the way the detective had completely halted all of his actions, at the way all of the three men surrounding Detective Reed’s desk had simply stared at him. But, later, when his new partner actually began to move and speak, the RK900 reasoned that perhaps he preferred the man acting like a right idiot than how he chose to afterwards.

For starters, the man decided to simply slap - indeed, _slap_ , like the android was some sort of naughty puppy meant to be scolded for wetting the carpet - the RK900’s hand away as a look of strange fury overtook his face. Confused, the being lowered his hand, dropping his arm to its usual stiff position at his side as he opened his mouth to utter some mixed words of apology. 

His attempt was in vain, however, as he was immediately cut off by a torrent of swears escaping Gavin’s mouth.

“For the fucking love of fucking God,” the man yelled harshly, drawing the attention of some confused passerbys. His small body seemed to quiver entirely, seemingly incapable of containing its rage. “I so fucking _cannot_ believe that Fowler wasn’t lying. The dick knows how much I used to hate those overgrown dildos, still do, he’s just doing this to fucking spite me, always had it out for me…” As the detective rambled on, it became increasingly apparent that he wasn’t directly addressing the RK900 and rather mumbling to himself as he continued to rapidly push out garbled words.

It was only when the android was able to spot the detective’s indicated stress levels that he decided to interject, put slightly at worry by the slightly abnormally high percentage of 78%. He also found it somewhat intriguing that the man had reached such a high stress level simply from the android introducing himself, but he pushed the thought aside for the time being and considered a new task - calming down the raging middle-aged man.

Blinking, the RK900 attempted to somewhat adapt to the situation, choosing to lean forwards and increase his internal temperature as he invaded the detective’s personal space in an attempt to calm the man. “I suggest attempting to calm yourself,” the android spoke slowly and clearly, overlapping the small man’s frenzied words for a good moment, “as your stress levels are reaching a dangerously high level. Perhaps you could try breathing in slowly, or listening to some calming audio, as these practices are indicated to have a good success rate, with each over 69% high.”

“Fuck off!” the smaller man shouted immediately as the other paused, lunging forwards with an unchecked, entirely wild and raw energy that would’ve made the RK900 recoil in shock if that hadn’t opposed most of his programming. He slammed his small (yet strangely apt, the android noticed with a slight cock of his head), pinkish fists into the taller android’s firm chest, forcing him to stumble back and widen his optic units in shock. “I am _so_ not working with a tin can as a partner, so you can run off and go whine to Fowler about that, prick.”

It could’ve been either the 36-year-old’s shrill voice or sharp actions, but there was certainly something about what had just occurred that shook the other two males into life. 

“Hey, hey, break it up! Sit your ass down, Reed,” the Lieutenant growled, crossing his arms but also refusing to physically break up the two from their current squabble (although it may not have been necessary anyways - after all, the rather childish detective had simply pushed away the android and leaned back in his chair) as his android stepped forwards, chocolate brown eyes hardening and releasing their somewhat childlike innocence for a moment.

The android was only interrupted once again, however, by the RK900 himself, who was able to organize his thoughts and conflicting priorities in a short, slightly impressive moment.

Well. There was a change of events.

He cocked his head again, pleased that it came more fluidly to him than it had a mere moment ago. He knew that as an android - and additionally, as a superior member of his own kind - he was programmed to adapt and change his behavior to better suit a success rate at heavy costs, and that there would not be a very high chance of success if he responded to the detective with the somewhat mechanical, far too respectful and clipped manner of speaking. 

Instead, he decided to opt for a different mannerism, a mannerism that was entirely strange and foreign to his body and one that he was forced to download rather than push out of himself.

**_// … DOWNLOADING NEW FUNCTIONS … //_ **

**_// … DOWNLOAD SUCCESSFUL … //_ **

“I would advise against doing that again, Detective Reed - unless you would like to end up with a couple of broken fingers,” the android remarked, his voice suddenly cool and less simply mechanical as it had a mere few seconds ago. “I was employed by your boss, Jeffrey Fowler, because of a severe lack of androids in the force, not to tolerate your hissy fits and leave when you wish. I am to be your partner whether either of us likes it or not - and, trust me, Detective, I am not so pleased about this arrangement either - and I would rather not have this partnership involve you constantly throwing fits and me having _to deal with them._ ”

He left his last words on a more sinister note as he left forwards once again, invading the detective’s personal space for a second time in spite of the detective’s previous reaction to it. 

The RK900’s words seemed to be well received - not only did Connor deem his reaction acceptable enough to close his mouth and simply watch the two interact from then on, but the Lieutenant and detective both were able to abandon their rather irate moods.

He was rather pleased to see a visible change in the detective himself. The male’s entire face initially paled, flushing quickly afterwards, as he recoiled quickly, spinning his chair backwards. His body coiled up as he somewhat subconsciously slightly curled upwards, his stress levels and heartbeat rapidly raising in speed and amount as he clamped his jaws shut after releasing a last “F-f-fuhh-ck…”

“Missing the you,” the android muttered, his voice soft and surprisingly gentle - picking itself up with a playful lilt at the end, something that greatly opposed the more aggressive note it had just administered moments ago - despite what had just occurred as he leaned even further into Gavin’s personal space.

The other’s heartbeat rose to a dangerously high rate as he did, making the RK900 - rather cheekily - think of how simply _amused_ he was by that simple thing.

Well, there was a method that worked - short, somewhat sarcastic snippiness in the beginning, and a softer, gentler tone afterwards. 

A small smile, a jerky, unnatural-looking thing that looked entirely inhumane and out of odds on the android’s face, was adopted by the male for a short moment. He’d have to remember that tactic. It seemed like it would prove useful in the future - Gavin seemed like the type to spit out obnoxious crap often, and the RK900 knew that if the time ever arose he’d need a surefire way to shut the detective up.

He opened his mouth again, ready to spit out something as short or snarky - perhaps he would try something sarcastic, which seemed absolutely delightful based off of a skim-through of his new programs and a basic study online - when he was interrupted by a sudden communication transmission, his LED beginning to spin a golden color as he intook the information and moved his lips to form a silent reply.

Although he was preoccupied by the conversation he was currently withholding with the person on the other side of the line, he was able to notice Reed shift uncomfortably in his spinning chair, seeming somewhat troubled by the android’s presence (it was actually quite _amusing_ , he found, which was a startling realization to an android that had just felt emotions things too foreign to their own body), and the sudden disappearance of the Lieutenant and his partner. Perhaps his actions had scared them off, although there was a much higher probability of them leaving because of their assurance in his capability in holding his own against Reed.

That was delightful as well. He’d have to meet up with the two separately - especially with his predecessor, who he found rather intriguing, actually, as he felt that he would be more comfortable around another android, especially one of the same series. 

He signed off a couple moments later, his communication link abruptly broken, and refocused his primarily gray optic units once again, staring at his new partner, who was currently looking somewhat sullen and extremely pouty. He’d have to spend more time with the male, he could already tell, to get used to his childish manner of forging through the workday and dealing with rising tempers.

“We are currently needed at the site of a recent, problematic crime that I am told you have the case file for,” the android announced, staring pointedly at his somewhat obnoxious partner, who wrapped his slightly quivering fingers around the handle of an orange coffee mug and raised it to his lips as a last dark drop slipped onto them.

It was suddenly brought to the model’s attention that the detective’s lips were rather full for such a pouty man, a spot of information that he was slightly confused to receive and forced away quickly after deeming it nothing close to crucial to the mission.

That was weird, having two slightly important features to his own body malfunction in the span of a couple minutes. He would have to have himself checked later, although he almost visibly winced at the possibility of being reset.

“Didn’t make enough coffee for this shit,” he heard the detective growl as he slid out of his chair, his fingers scrabbling around a thick, pale foldered file. The rather short man brushed past him quite - and rather unnecessarily - forcefully as he stomped away. His gargantuan pout mingled rather unattractively with his scowl to form a rather garish facial expression. Detective Reed began to quickly flip through the files, pausing shortly at a paper that the RK900 quickly spotted was marked with an address in a bold font at the top of it before slamming it shut as he walked towards the exit of the precinct.

“Keep up, tin can, I’m not gonna wait for you in the car,” the man called rather cheekily - and with a forced casual obnoxiousness, the android noticed through the cut in the man’s voice - as he closed his faintly hairy fingers around the handle of one of the entrance’s glass doors, gradually easing it open enough to have just enough room to slip his body through.

The android remained rooted in its spot for a moment, its supercomputer brain racing to catch up with the small snippets of information it had just received from the flashes of the papers he had spotted in the file, before it gave a last hard look at the detective’s back and followed suit.

For the love of Cyberlife (and what he had heard a few humans proclaim “Robo-Jesus,” which was a term he didn’t understand but was fairly sure was something near to a android’s term of God) - oh, the next few weeks were going to be _so very difficult._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> gavin's backside may or may not have included his ass  
> who knows
> 
> rk900's too innocent right now anyways, he doesn't know that markus = robo jesus
> 
>  
> 
> but i literally cannot write rk900 or any of the other characters (besides maybe connor cause he hasn't said ANYTHING). h e l p.
> 
>  -
> 
> remember that dropping a kudos, bookmark, comment, etc. is always helpful for me!


	5. Complex

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which they share a weird moment, the RK900 has somewhat of a superiority complex, and Gavin is fucking screwed.

Of course, when Gavin had informed the android that he would certainly not be waiting for him in the car, he had been lying.

He didn’t know why he had been, didn’t know why his hands weren’t gripping the steering wheel and his feet weren’t digging into the metal pedals right then and there, but he had been lying, and that was simple to him enough.

He huffed lightly to himself, raising his hands only to notice how each began to clench and unclench. Giving a soft sigh, he shifted forwards, leaning his head to gently touch his forehead against the steering wheel of his strangely clean car before leaning back and slamming it back into position. Confused as to why the idiotic hunk of metal was not already sitting beside him, he let out a rough groan as it was covered by the sharp, blaring sound of his car’s horn.

The detective had just about been ready to drive his childishly retro sneakers into the accelerator when the annoyingly stiff male had appeared at the window suddenly, jarring Gavin into actually jumping out of his chair. 

Oh, fuck, why did he have to act so shitty around his new partner? 

He settled down immediately after, shifting his ass down on the seat cushion as he narrowed his eyes at the android, who was still standing outside the window, currently looking like he found it difficult to not burst out with eerily, unnaturally crystal-gorgeous tears and way-too-refined laughs (which probably would’ve been fake, wouldn’t they, sneered the man to himself).

Fucking hell, he probably thought himself so great to be able to have Gavin jump simply because he had spotted him. It wasn’t his own fault, he convinced himself rather angrily as a pale salmon shade overtook his face, it was the RK900’s fault for looking so much like another particularly irritating (although less so, now that he thought about it - at least he made him coffee every once in a while, especially when he had infuriated the detective particularly so) hunk of shaved plastic.

Well, fuck if Gavin was going to keep giving the android with the (probably fake, he thought quite snidely, ‘cause Si and Dan were both still trying to convince him that androids had feelings as deviants - Ralph, on the other hand, cared more about microwaving burritos for lunch) satisfaction of knowing that he could rile up him that much. He chose to let out a smaller, secret huff and try to wipe the unprofessional flush of colour upon his face before pulling down the car window, sticking his head out and nearly knocking into the RK900’s own. Such an action would’ve scared the pants off of any other one of his coworkers - even Chen, especially when said coworker had just been attempting to keep their eyes open out of a struggle to refrain from laughing too hard - but of course the bot had chosen the moment to suddenly refine himself into his usual poised stance, not even flinching when Gavin’s face got close to his.

“Hey, get in the car, you dil-,” the man started, rolling his eyes as he spoke before cutting himself off.

‘Course, when he had been straight in the middle of talking - and cussing somebody else off, at that matter - the RK900 had immediately decided to lean a little closer, inching so close that if he were to breathe he would inhale all of Gavin’s air.

Which wouldn’t be a good idea, of course, since the male suddenly couldn’t breathe.

He seemed to be studying his new partner, the detective in mention noticed with a soft gulp, quickly intaking the android’s _ungodly_ human, minnow coloured eyes as they seemingly softened at the sight laid before them (and a sharp breath of air, of course). He just happened to also start staring at the sharp corners and edges of the android’s artificial face, start staring at the rippling shades of pigmented grayish-icy blue washing over his eyes, start staring at the features covered in massive expanses of perfectly porcelain synthetic skin and start wondering why the absolute shite his sick pervert of a half brother had wanted to make all androids so sickeningly perfect, so sickeningly, inhumanely beautiful. 

Why the fuck couldn’t he just save that feature for the useless fuck toys Gavin simply _knew_ he kept around his house?

Really, it was strange how much his half brother’s life was centered around pretty things. He’d always been so annoyingly petty like that - it really could’ve been because of Gavin, on second thought, who had always been so toxic and obviously jealous of the teenage genius that he wouldn’t doubt his presence in the man’s life being viewed as a big, ugly splotch.

‘Course, there was a very unlikely probability of that happening. Fuck his brother for being so generous and ‘forgiving’ or whatever they called the made-up emotions that were even somewhat kind (‘cause nothing like that could possibly exist in Gavin’s little world).

Maybe ugliness was privately seen as some sort of flaw by the teenage genius - maybe he thought that pretty things couldn’t possibly be as broken as ugly ones.

Boy, was Gavin Reed massive fucking proof that the shitty philosophy could not be more wrong.

 _Fucking hell, what am I doing?_ he thought suddenly, making himself able to grasp at reality for a good moment. Oh, fucking _shittity shit_ , he’d just been staring at the dildo for a majorly, insanely awkward few minutes (but, then again, the oversized pale plastic dick was staring back, wasn’t he?). What was _he_ doing, not spitting in the android’s face right now? What the actual _fuck_ was he doing in general?

Shit, his blonde Barbie bimbos of roommates were making him _insanely_ soft.

“What are you looking at?” he muttered, recoiling a couple moments later as he hackishly cleared his throat to allow himself to reach his usual throaty voice capacity. “Fuck off, oversized dildo, and get in the car,” continued the short man, choosing to rile himself up instead of actually thinking about what had just happened like a sensible adult. He was rather pleased to see that the RK900 simply sighed, blinking slowly and giving him a last stare before slowly moving off to enter the car and take the front seat beside him instead of actually trying to confront the male on what weird, way-too-close shit had just occurred.

Huh, his partner wasn’t that shitty of a ~~person~~ bot (or, of course, wasn’t in his opinion, which made him probably a very shitty bot). After all, he didn’t like confrontation as much as Gavin did, and was beginning to seem as shitty as he was as well. 

Yeah, he was beginning to look like he wasn’t the worst. 

He got the car up and running as soon as the android was beside him, starting the engine and grinding the vehicle forwards before the other could even shut the door. With a short grunt, he stepped heavily down on the gas pedal, immediately swerving about the roads surrounding the precinct as he drove about. 

Gavin, of course, had always thought himself a decent driver (maybe even a great driver - after all, it wasn’t like he had gotten in a car crash before, even when he was off-the-charts drunk, although he had certainly been late to things before), but he could quickly tell from the growing scowl on the android’s face (holy fuck, how did he look so real doing that? He’d, like, just been acting like a tin puppet and now he was acting like fucking Hank) that he definitely thought otherwise.

“The fuck you whining about?” he asked with a matching expression of indignancy, furrowing his brows as he tilted his head slightly to the side to split his attention between the road and the plastic asshole. Gavin raised a slim hand to his head with a small sigh, sifting through his slicked-back brown locks as he drove, his fists squeezing harder around the steering wheel of his car in no relation whatsoever to the prick sitting right next to him.

The other male only scowled heavier, his lips peeling back slightly as his face displayed a strangely _realistic_ emotion that shook Gavin. Well, shit, could that android adapt to things with nothing more than a couple seconds and a snap of his incredibly pale little fingers. 

“Must you always comment so - unprofessionally, to put it eloquently?” the RK900 growled at him, raising a hand lightly to swiftly yet firmly nudge the male’s cheek, turning his face back to the road. Unfortunately, his movement was far too quick and smooth for the detective to be able to slap his hand away once again, and so he was forced to settle with growling and shifting in discomfort at the physical contact. “But the thing I’m ‘whining about,’ Detective, is your poor driving skills.”

“Ah, get off my dick, you prick, I drive totally fine. I bet there ain’t shit you can point out about my driving that’s wrong in any way,” Gavin remarked, a small snarl working itself into his voice despite how grudgingly light his tone was intended to be. 

But, of course, that was because Gavin was the type to make shit darker than he intended, than things were ever supposed to be - he was like some shitty drink that was way too bitter for his own good and was only sipped by rich, young bitches who needed a rebellious mistake and old dicks, he thought ~~somewhat~~ bitterly.

The RK900’s eyes glittered, actually fucking _glittered_ , in the moments taking place directly after his partner’s words were launched out of his mouth. Ah, fuck, Reed was already regretting every single shitty word.

“For one, you occasionally decide to switch from two hands on the wheel to one, which is an act that has been illegal since 2024. Furthermore, your attention is constantly divided between the road and other things - in this current case, me, which I would rather care not to apologize for as you really are the one who initiated this conversation. You are also speeding - this car is traveling at a rate of 46 miles per hour, while the meters surrounding you clearly indicate that you must travel at rate of 25 miles per hour. Finally, you are drifting between lanes constantly, which perhaps isn’t an illegal practice at the moment but a very idiotic one seeing as your probability of slamming into that lady pedestrian over there is already at 67% and rising.”

Oh, shit.

Well, maybe he should’ve expected it from Mr. Supercomputer For Brains.

Put off by the information - especially by the last sentence out of all - Gavin chose to slam on the brakes, pausing for a good moment as his heartbeat rose to an extremely unsteady rate. Fucking hell, this android was going to be the death of him - one more word and he would probably start to try to mess with the crazy shit in the car’s mechanics to blow the whole thing up.

He was taken by how quickly he became infuriated simply from being told what he was doing wrong on the road - fortunately, the stage passed quickly enough to allow him to ignore it and let all his flaring, far-too-abrupt-to-be-healthy emotions fade all away to simple breathless confusion.

“Detecti-,” started the android, his haughty face contorting into an expression that Gavin assumed was actual concern - well, fuck, that was a first; somebody he had been acting like a total dick to in the few minutes he had known him actually gave a damn about him - as he spoke, getting cut off by his partner almost immediately.

“Plastic,” the detective growled, his tone and voice sharp as a blade despite the somewhat pleading, softer edge roaming his grayish-brown eyes. Although it was obvious that the middle-aged man was attempting to warn his new partner, he did not say much else, his breathing forcing his chest heavily up and down as he managed to calm himself down enough to pull over on the sidewalk of the neighborhood.

It was strange - he hadn’t expected the neighborhood near the scene to be so simply expensive and high-end. Perhaps he should’ve based off of the attire of the first victim in the crime scene. But whatever, Gavin Reed could be adaptable, _was_ adaptable, so fucking adaptable, so it didn’t matter that a massive fucking slob like him was walking around in a neighborhood that looked like it housed families that didn’t let their kids even have phones until they were in high school.

Whatever, he was fine. At least he’d managed to somewhat dress himself up for the day. God knew that the authorities would be immediately informed if he were to even step foot in the neighborhood with his usual attire on.

“We’re here,” he announced, switching off the car and looping his silver ring of keys around his index finger as he twirled it about, his other hand occupied with the case file. The slight twitching of each appendages was a clear reminder and indicator that Gavin Reed may not have been as fine as Gavin Reed was supposed to be, that he may not have been as professionally collected as the android currently - rather infuriatingly, in fact - was.

“Detective, my sources indicate that the destination is still a couple blocks away. Are you fully sure that you would like to walk such a distance instead of driving the car there?” the RK900 asked, his plastic Barbie-doll hand placed on the sleek black handle of the car door as Gavin himself exited. His partner’s short leave made him hesitantly push forwards as he pulled on the handle, creating an exit for himself, although he initially did not take it.

“Ah, can it, Robocop, I’m good. Unless Cyberlife’s favorite toy isn’t as good as they claim it to be,” Gavin added, his initial words bearing a bit more forced sharpness than necessary, although his last words were more childishly teasing. It was strange how adaptable both were, so remarkable that a bystander to the conversation may have gotten confused by how biting the human could be in one moment and somewhat soft in the next, and how jerkily robotic the RK900 could move one moment and how incredibly, weirdly _real_ he could look in the next.

His final words, as teasing and strangely less biting as they usually were, seemed to rile up the RK900 more than his seriously infuriated words had, and they were what forced the android into quickly swinging out of the car. His face twitching as he desperately attempted to place upon it a face of cool indifference, he moved forwards swiftly, towering above Gavin as he began to speak.

“And what would that mean?” he spoke surprisingly carefully, and even though the detective hardly knew the bot, he could tell that his manner of speech was far too careful for even the cool, composed being. 

“Would mean you’re lazy, cunt,” the other male proposed rather cheekily, a cool smirk appearing on his face as he realized how much his words were going to get to the android’s head. His words were hardly as careful as the other’s, as Gavin was a man who preferred to work off the top of his head and as unprepared as possible. “After all, who ever heard of the android that couldn’t keep up with a piece of shit human detective, let alone walk a couple of blocks?” 

_Wow_ , he mused to himself, _who knew that the most professional android out there yet had a major inferiority and pride complex?_

His words - finally - seemed to be taking quite a toll on the android, whose left eye was beginning to twitch severely as his LED quickly took upon a golden hue. For a good few seconds, the gold faded into dangerous, halting crimson before fading back into its previous color, the switching of colours beginning to occur many times as the android seemed to process Gavin’s speech.

“You’re going to regret that, Reed,” the android chose to say at last, leaning forwards to nearly press their noses together and glare deeply into the detective’s rapidly blinking eyes. Offering no further response, he then stomped off just as Reed’s breath began to subtly hitch, walking away from him in a direction that he noticed (with a light curse) was actually correct.

Still, he was a petty bitch, and so he decided to call after him, although initially without pursuit. “Wrong way, Robocop!”

“No it’s not, dumbass!” he heard yelled shortly afterwards, forcing his lips to peel upwards slightly before he could rip the expression away with a harsh scowl. 

Well, fuck.

Not only was he actually stuck with a plastic prick of a partner, he realized suddenly, he was also stuck with a plastic prick of a partner that had some majorly large dickwad problems (for an android, of course, because “nobody in the fucking universe could take the title for Biggest Dickwad away from Gavin fucking Reed,” eloquently put by Chen and Hank both). Fucking great.

Not to mention that the android was a total fucking babe (also for an android). Well, that was just swell - he already knew that he was going to get stared at even more with that oversized piece of plastic by his side.

It was strange, though. For a moment, as he had called Gavin by his last name and sworn (which Gavin had until recently thought was taboo or simply impossible for androids), he had seemed almost… _okay_ to be around? No, no, fuck that. The idiotic android was a massive synthetic cum dumpster, and that was that. Nothing was going to change that, nothing at all, he swore. 

With a sigh and a thrift of his flushed hand through his hair, the detective chased after the rather large, plastic idiot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i didnt know what to write (since i felt like stalling on writing up arriving at the crime scene) so i inserted 1 weird moment to start pushing this along.
> 
> remember to leave a comment/kudos/etc.! helps me lots :)


	6. Police Line, Don't Cross

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Gavin forgets his badge, the RK900 has social troubles, and another weird moment occurs.

They arrived at the crime scene a couple minutes after Gavin’s intriguing discovery (androids having insecurities was not something new - Daniel, Simon, and Ralph were each living explanations - to him, but a so-called apparently first-rate android like the RK900 having a superiority complex was massive). The detective probably would’ve gotten lost, he mused - surprisingly enough, Gavin wasn’t the best with directions and routes that were outside of the area surrounding his old apartment and the precinct, intoxicated or not - if not for the oversized great idiot charging ahead of him, remaining just barely in his line of sight and the sharp blaring of police cars.

It was a surprisingly grim scene for such a high end neighborhood - the houses about the place actually had those expensive, freshly painted porches and high brand-name cars - a crime placed in what Gavin could immediately pick out was the shadiest place around for the next few blocks. The alleyway that the crime had been performed in - it was a rather cliché place to carry out a crime, and especially a murder, he thought - was strangely dark, as if it were bathed in the shadow carried by nearby buildings, despite it being the morning and there being massive amounts of flashing police cars flooded down its sides. 

Gavin scowled sharply as he neared the scene, shortly losing sight of the android ahead of him in the thick crowds of people surrounding the alleyway. Surprisingly, he hardly spotted many pedestrians at the scene - most of the crowd consisted primarily of police officers, and no other detectives. That was strange - usually Gavin wasn’t trusted enough to be assigned a case alone, but he supposed he wasn’t ‘alone’ any longer.

Curse Fowler, and himself for triggering the man so much that he thought forcing a plastic Barbie doll upon the 36-year-old’s care was a good idea.

“Hey! Robocop!” Gavin shouted, dragging a hand down his face and letting it snag lightly on his stubble as he charged through the crowd. He swerved about, weaving through conversing cops as he chased after his idiotic partner, only to be stopped by a tanned woman with her uniform hat set low on her head. 

“Police line, don’t cross,” stated the woman plainly, holding out her hand to pause his strides like some sort of traffic guard. Her voice was so low and blank that it was suddenly difficult for the detective to battle fleeting thoughts of how the woman must’ve been an android. And simple thoughts about the synthetic creatures reminded him of his new, far-too-professional-for-his-own-good partner, which slipped him back into his harsh mood.

Ah, fuck those synthetic idiots. First, three of their kind softened him up - next, he was stuck working with one of those smartasses. Jesus, they were going to be the literal death of him.

“I’m a detective. Gavin Reed, DPD, chill.” His words were strangely worked up and sounded rather sarcastic - which meant it overly sounded like a total lie - when they left his throat, probably as a result of his regularly sour mood. Despite the rather casual manner of the words, his manner of tone seemed to sour the whole effect, leading the police woman to contort her face into a strange expression.

She withdrew her hand, leading Gavin to believe that he could cross, only to turn and cross her bronzed arms. She shook her head firmly at him before he could speak, opening her mouth to simply say, “Sorry, but I don’t see no proof of that, so I can’t let you cross.”

“Ah, fuck!” he spat out immediately, completely aware that he had forgotten his badge in the precinct and wondering how the hell the RK900 could obviously muscle through the woman when he couldn’t. He was already having massive problems - primarily because of the plastic asshole himself - and with the additional trouble of roping in his particularly fiery own temper, he was just about ready to start screaming at the female cop. Wanted to, actually - most people said that Gavin Reed was a man who couldn’t have a good day without it involving him popping off his rocker, was a man that practically got off at screaming degrading, ~~occasionally~~ extremely childish insults at others.

They weren’t entirely wrong (he was perfectly aware of how fucked up he was, and that was evident to himself and sometimes others).

Unfortunately, he missed his next opportunity to mouth off at somebody else when he spotted a familiar dark brown (dark brown so dark, he recalled thinking at one point, that it was nearly black, exposed only in the light of the bright morning) head pop up above the crowd as it bobbed closer and closer to him. His mouth still hung open - he was still fully prepared to yell at the lady blocking him from the main point of the crime scene, his dick of a partner present or not - but he was forced to shut it quickly from a sharp look from the RK900.

It did not happen upon him that his grudging action was a clear symbol of submission initially, but after the robot’s clear, smug little fuck-up of a human smirk it was the only thing clouding up his mind. Annoyed at how quickly he had allowed the plastic robot and his presence to control him, he rapidly opened his jaws again, turning to the cop ahead of him as he readied himself for his next spit-filled, hissy fit before he was once again interrupted by his simply infuriating partner. 

“It’s quite alright, Miss Ramnarine, he’s with me,” the plastic dickwad shortly announced, pausing his strides towards the two only when the yellow police line was pressing against his fake, impossibly, somehow _annoying broad_ chest. His curt nod to the woman and his brief hand motion to Gavin made it clear he thought them - especially _him_ \- below him, which made a little red trace his vision, admittedly.

Gavin would never deny his temper was always fast to come, but with the plastic ‘droid around it was strangely, insanely quick, like it was on some sort of steroids that only affected him when the other was around.

Ah, great. Not only was he stuck with a ‘droid almost as obnoxious as himself as a partner, he was also stuck with a ‘droid that had a superiority complex, a difficulty for socializing, and an insane talent for riling up Gavin.

Well, hell if he was going to show the bot how much he affected him. He would just let himself act like a normal obnoxious prick for now (but he swore that if that bot didn’t clean up his act, he was going to get _drunk_ levels of pissy).

Attempting to take deep breaths to relieve himself of some of his furious temper, he simply pushed forwards, ducking under the police tape - he could already tell from the android’s sterile face that he was finding it difficult to crack a joke about how little the detective needed to duck for it to be possible for him to make it through, he thought with a large sneer - and choosing to ignore ‘Miss Ramnarine’s call of “Hey, who even are you? How do you know my name? I still need to see your badge!”

Since she only found a couple of possible strangers crossing into a crime scene mildly important (or simply just important enough for her to call a couple times after the two before giving up), Gavin didn’t feel that guilty making his way into the heart of the alleyway.

Scratch that - he didn’t feel guilty at all.

It was only when he was getting over the fact that the RK900’s smirk was exceedingly, overly annoying and that he probably thought himself so great, so much _better_ than Gavin, the human trashbag, that he realized the android had done him a simple solid.

That was strange.

Really, really, strange.

He only thought of that a couple of moments in the actual good parts of the alleyway (it was arguable that they were ‘good parts’ - after all, they were littered with three beheaded corpses), the thought coming to him slowly and still taking him by surprise, as if his brain would rather not process the fact that he had just been done an actual favor.

Wow, was that a change.

It was really, really, _really_ strange, on a final musing. What kind of asshole actually did favors? Furthermore, what kind of asshole helped other assholes with no apparent reason to (Gavin supposed that it could’ve been the fact that he was trying to be professional or wanted some help on the mission, but he doubted that a: the robot cared that much or b: the robot was actually that dumb or valued his opinion that much)? 

Huh.

Either that android was all kinds of stupid, or Gavin was for not understanding why the hell he got help from the dumbass.

Pushing off the questions beginning to flood his head, he simply moved forth, trying to concern himself with the mission alone for once. It was only when he took a couple steps forwards and could spot the end of the alleyway (it was surprisingly large, but what did he expect, wandering into one of them uppy rich people neighborhoods?) that his eyes finally landed on the bodies.

The sights captured on picture in the case file had been perfectly preserved somehow, kept perfectly in shape, but somehow Gavin still doubted that the photographs did the corpses any justice. Rapidly, he began to find difficult to keep down his rising sense of disgust, horror, and slight chill (and also the rapidly crawling ounce of bile sliding up his throat).

“Shit,” he muttered, gulping rather loudly and audibly as his eyes slowly began to adjust to the sight. “That’s fucking gorey.”

 

His words, as quiet and self-directed as they were, still seemed to attract the quite unwanted - and unneeded - attention of one stupid prototype, and his haughty, I’m-so-much-better-than-you scoff. “Eloquent, as always, Detective,” the android snickered, leaning towards Reed as he spoke. “Two men and an android all beheaded, blood and thirium pouring down their sides, and all you can say is ‘that’s fucking gorey?’” 

“Fuck off,” he snapped immediately, unable to prevent red from flooding onto his face as a reaction. How’d the android get so annoying, anyways?

Said android only reacted with an extremely, absolutely infuriatingly calm smile as he leaned away again, allowing Gavin’s personal space to actually be his own for once and clasping his hands together behind his back.

“I thought you were the one who believed in being professional, or respecting others, or actually being nice to people - I don’t remember, it was just some pansy bullshit. Think bullying me’s such a good idea?” he challenged shortly afterwards, raising his eyebrows as he tilted his face towards the RK900.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” the android replied swiftly, making Gavin curse his brother for having to make androids so clever once again. Damn him and his need to make his creations so perfect. “Have I hurt your feelings?”

“Oh, shit off, there’s three headless dickwads to get to.” 

That seemed to finally snap them - or at least the RK900 - back into a sort of business-savvy, professional mood, or perhaps more of a robotic one. Strangely enough, Gavin was slightly disappointed to see the android return to its stiffer, less deviant-like state - perhaps it was because they had actually been getting along, of sorts?

Of course, a bystander would’ve definitely thought otherwise - the detective had literally just told the bot to shit off. Yet Gavin was used to treating his very few, limited friends like that (not like that bitch would ever, ever be considered as his friend), by speaking to them with his usual level of cursing and less of his usual harsh, snappy bite - well, usually his precinct friends, as his ‘temporary’ roommates were used to receiving softer treatment, curse them. Those who knew him outside of that - those probably being Hank, Chen, Chris, and maybe one or two more doofuses on his good days - would mercilessly tease him for acting so domestic to his partner if they were there on the crime scene at the moment.

Gavin happened to thank Jesus that they weren’t.

Afterwards, he stepped forwards, choosing to study the dead bodies in more depth. He felt uneasy with touching any of the corpses - primarily because they were extremely gross, but partially because he would rather not tamper with the evidence or whatever.

Slightly managing to overcome the swift rushes of nausea overtaking his body for a few moments, he leaned forwards, his dark eyebrows scrunching together as he studied a couple of wounds littered on the body of what seemed like the most well off man. The pink of his inner flesh became difficult to see when it was lightly hinted by dried dark blood that hardly contrasted with his deeper bronzed skin, but he was still able to pinpoint many of the marks born upon him.

Each of the wounds, he noticed, were strange - each seemed unique up close. Initially he had thought they were all slashes, thin marks marred upon the man’s skin, but with a new, much closer proximity, Gavin was able to notice that none were the same. One part of his flesh had little marks surrounding marring it, the area of the wound being covered by little misshapen lumps, like it had been administered from a meat tenderizer of sorts, while another was thin and lightly dripping out blood, appearing as if it had been caused by a small bladed knife. Perhaps an exotic, not native type of knife?

He was still studying the first body when the RK900 had apparently finished his own examination, standing straight up from where he had seemingly bent over at to turn to the detective.

Apparently not wanting to waste any more time with small talk, the android launched itself straight into its core purpose. “The victims are each wounded thoroughly, and there is a high probability that even without their beheadings and the removal of the android’s thirium pump, they all would have perished nevertheless because of a lack of thirium and blood,” he started, his voice stretched formally thin yet not as stiff as it had been initially. It was still awfully odd how fast androids could adapt, although the RK900’s shockingly rapid transformation was mostly caused by the new functions it had downloaded (most were socially related, including prompts on how to properly use sarcasm and acting more natural). 

“Each of the wounds are unique to the body, each inflicted by a different tool - the wounds you have been analyzing were inflicted by an aluminum meat tenderizer and a Japanese fugubiki knife. However, only the android was killed here. The other bodies were dragged here, and it is obvious that the other men were murdered elsewhere.” The android paused its speech for a moment as a strange expression racked its face. Perhaps it was...musing?

“Yet I do not understand why the murderer would use different murder weapons to murder each person, let alone murder them in general. Surely they would know that using more murder weapons increases their probability of being caught, due to the fact that having more murder weapons spread out across the area means more chances to find one and connect it to the murder?” the RK900 asked, cocking its head for the second time in Gavin’s presence. “And why would the other bodies be dragged here? Why did the murderer simply just leave them in the area where they were killed?”

Gavin shrugged in response, his eyebrows furrowing once again. Unsurprisingly enough, he was slightly irritated that the RK900 had gathered all of that information without Gavin’s help, and that the detective himself had not been the one to realize all of that initially, but he found it easier to push his flaring emotions aside for the sake of his actual interest in the case.

“Sometimes humans do stupid things,” he responded, “assuming that it was one of ‘em who did all of this. Could’ve been an android hate crime - maybe a bunch of guys killed an android with their own separate tools, and decided to pick a fight with two guys once they were done. Could’ve dragged their bodies over here to just push them aside ‘cause they didn’t want to get caught, then painted the walls with their blood just to stir up something for fun.”

The RK900 studied the male shortly after he was done speaking, giving him the impression that an army of ants was crawling up his spine for a cold moment. “Your half-baked theory is not entirely impossible, although I do not believe it is incorrect. The preciseness of the words written on the wall is too neat and clear to be written by a human. I believe that an android had something to do with it.

“I was also able to notice something else of importance,” the android continued, furrowing his own brow as he went on. “The bodies all seem to be lacking of most blood. They do have some blood on their bodies, as seen leaking through the wounds, but they have lost an unnatural amount.”

Gavin shrugged again, not entirely shocked by the new information. “Could’ve leaked out by now, or could’ve been used up writing the words.”

“Possibly, but I do not believe so,” he paused for a moment, seeming to contemplate his odds as he thought.

God, it almost hurt how real he seemed, the male thought in the meantime. But Gavin knew it was so fucking fake, so he wouldn’t, _didn’t_ let himself get caught by the illusion (because it was already somewhat difficult seeing his roommates as having emotions and human-like quirks, and thinking of the most robotic android alive with feelings of his own made Gavin weirdly uncomfortable), even as he felt himself begin to slip back into the cynical hole that he always felt himself dropping into just when he thought that he could socialize almost normally.

He continued shortly afterwards, however, his LED slowly beginning to flash yellow for a few moments before it stabilized itself and returned to its usual baby blue. “I believe that they were drained of their blood intentionally, that their blood was not all used up through the writing or through sapping naturally out of their bodies,” he announced, leaving Gavin to ponder the theory in slight surprise as he suddenly - and swiftly - bent over, stuck out his left hand into the largest wound sticking out of the second victim’s body, swirled his pale finger about until it was coated in crimson, and brought it to his lips.

“What the fuck!” the detective shouted immediately, all considerations of the surprisingly logical thought abandoned. 

What the actual _fucking fuck._

Never, he thought to himself, _never_ had he witnessed anything entirely, superbly disgusting, even on android standards. 

Who just licked off somebody’s blood on a daily basis, just licked off somebody’s own blood so simply casually?

Oh, fuck.

Of course his lower half decided to greet him in that moment.

Seriously, he knew that he was a majorly kinky motherfucker, but really?

Blood licking?

Shit, shit, shit, he was so fucking lucky that he had decided to wear his black slacks loose upon his body that day, or else he was so fucking screwed.

By the raised eyebrow of a nearby police officer when he turned around, a furious blush crossing his face mercilessly, he still was, loose slacks or not.

Oh, shit, he hoped to God that Robocop was idiotic about this, too.

Thankfully, when he turned back around, the plastic moron seemed to not notice anything different about the man, instead seeming to think that the male had only turned around out of disgust for the licking action. A low chuckle erupted from the back of his throat as he watched the detective.

Fucking hell, that was _so_ not what his dick needed.

Shit, what the fuck was he doing?

He desperately attempted to wipe the furious blush still washing over his face, casually holding his arms at a point where one of them covered his crotch while the RK900 finally roped in his fleeting moment of amusement.

“Don’t act so melodramatic, Detective, this is how I analyze material.” A pause as his LED flashed a brilliant golden. “It’s also how I’m capable of knowing that it’s likely that this man was killed around 48 hours ago, while the other-” he paused, pointing at the slightly tanned man’s body, of which Gavin finally noticed _still_ had his dick out, “was killed less than 24 hours ago. The android shut down approximately 18 minutes before the bodies were discovered.”

“So you’re telling me they were all killed with around a million different weapons, were killed at different times, were dragged here to the crime scene - or, at least two of them were - and were all specifically drained of most of their blood?” Gavin asked, incapable of keeping an incredulous tone out of his speech. It was partially there still because of the android's strange antic, however. Fucking hell.

“Indeed, Detective,” responded the android, seeming to choose to ignore the hint. “This case seems to be a lot more complex than a simple hate crime.”

“Ah, fuck,” the 36-year-old muttered, watching the sun begin to rise higher in the sky as the afternoon came with a silent grace as the two men eventually shut up (Gavin mostly because he was still majorly rattled at the fact that he had lowkey popped a boner at a crime scene. Near dead bodies. And blood. And words written in blood. Fuck, was he getting overly kinky). 

Just what he needed, he thought with an unsteady sigh, a big, overly complicated case and a possibly massive mystery on his hands.

No - a big, overly complicated case and possibly massive mystery on his and his dick of an actual partner’s hands.

As the RK900 abruptly pranced off, making its way out of the alleyway without a single following word - Jesus, the detective himself looked like a major social butterfly compared to the stupid android, because who the fuck just left his partner like that? - Gavin simply stared after the robot as if entranced for a moment.

_Fucking, fucking androids,_ he thought to himself as he followed the annoyingly infuriating android, a slight scowl beginning to grace his face. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i apologize if the transitions in their relationship seem a bit bumpy - i'm not the best at this and fairly new at it. i'm primarily just trying to move their relationship along (because i get afraid i'm gonna scare some kids with all of gavin's massively aggressive cusses all the time lmao)
> 
> i hope y'all are enjoying the fic so far, tho


	7. What the Fuck

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Gavin falls asleep, the RK900 acts strange again, and a _lot_ of coffee is drained.

The rest of the day started off fairly calm, or at least calm enough - the two drove back to the precinct in a type of silence that was rare to come by with a certain 36-year-old, a certain type of silence that you would learn to appreciate after hanging around him for quite a while. The air was still laced with discomfort, however, and the certain 36-year-old himself had caught himself thinking, in the midst of parking while the android sat quietly by his side, that perhaps the moment of silence shouldn’t have been cherished after all.

He scowled as soon as the thought came upon him. Nonsense. He’d rather feel uncomfortable than make actual conversation - actual shitty small talk, which he couldn’t and wouldn’t appreciate from anybody, let alone his new overgrown plastic dildo - with the tin can he was forced to call his partner.

The rest of the day progressed with a slow, obnoxiously boring crawl, consisting of the RK900 standing like a block beside the detective as he leafed through paperwork, scribbling a couple words here and there. The android spent most of the day simply standing and staring into space, his LED flashing yellow constantly and transitioning to the colour blue every now and then, but never taking upon the brilliant vermillion of harshness, and Gavin was not sure if he preferred what was occurring to the male’s previous conversation earlier.

No - more nonsense. Nothing was gonna change the fact that his new partner was a walking plastic dick.

He didn’t even care that the android was strangely relapsing into the behavior it had taken upon earlier - it wasn’t his problem. The only reason he even _cared_ ~~(but hadn’t he just said that he didn’t even care?)~~ was because it was annoying, and really pathetic.

To think that he’d thought the RK900 capable of adapting, capable of looking - or at least smirking - somewhat like a human, he thought with a silent sneer to himself. It was really, really pathetic.

At least Gavin had something to hold above the android.

Initially, he had wondered if the android was simply acting so strange in front of Gavin himself, so he had risen to grab coffee from one of the crappy machines in the few break rooms. When he had finished his task, he had peered around the corner before moving forth, snagging his eyes on the back of the android only to notice (in dulled ~~disappointment~~ disgust) that he was _still_ standing like a rock, perfect posture and everything. So he had returned as usual, mumbling something under his breath about androids and their annoying shit and raising not much attention from the RK900.

It was only when the detective was around halfway through his paperwork, had completely drained his coffee mug, and when most of the precinct was empty as the darkening light from outside strained through the windows that the android seemed to stir.

Without a word, Gavin’s orange coffee mug was smoothly whisked out of his hand as the android strode away, the contrasting of the quickly darkening sky and the precinct’s slightly yellow tinged lights casting patterns on the back of his jacket.

It took the male a good moment to process what was happening, because what the fuck.

It wasn’t often that his coffee mug that was stolen away from him.

Especially from an android that hadn’t moved since around 12 in the fucking afternoon.

As soon as his sluggish brain slowly caught up with itself, he started up, launching himself from his rolling chair. He slammed his pinkish hands upon his desk, his face suddenly alight with a flaming expression burning purely from anger. “What the actual fuck!” he shouted, briefly wondering who he was asking before he pushed away the thought in rage.

Perhaps a normal human being wouldn’t get worked up over having their coffee mug stolen, but Gavin was having none of it. He was already still spooked from the crime scene they had investigated much earlier in the day, and the fact that he was forced to slowly, slowly work through his paperwork while his annoying plastic partner just stood there, probably thinking (on second thought) of how much better he was than Gavin, the condescending prick, so the theft of his coffee mug had really been the last straw.

Yeah, that sounded right. ‘Cause only a condescending prick would have the absolute _audacity_ to steal Gavin fucking Reed’s fucking coffee mug.

He slid out of his desk’s space, obnoxiously sharp, curling tendrils of rage snagging themselves on his brain. He was really too tired - it really still _was_ the end of the workday, after all - to start trying to reason with himself, and all he knew in the absurdly childish moment was his sharp disbelief and anger at what had just happened.

He had just started to stalk after the RK900 in the direction he believed he had taken when the android’s head popped from around the corner, its face completely calm as blue swirled about its LED.

What was most important to Gavin himself, however (rather absurdly so, in fact, but the whole occurrence was childish in the first place - who ever heard of a grown man growing furious over his damn coffee mug getting stolen?) was the fact that he was gripping the man’s ugly yellow mug in his hand.

“Prick!” he shouted as soon as the android neared (and his initial, quick-to-come shock began to fade away), using his slender legs to allow himself to lunge forwards, his fingers scrabbling as they grabbed at the lapels of the being’s black and white coat. “You fucking shitty little piece of plastic! Did they wire you wrong or something, you fu-”

He was caught mid sentence, however, when the android tilted his pale face to angle it at the male’s incredibly flushed one, his gray eyes forcing Gavin’s words up his throat. It was obnoxious, he decided, how easy the other could make him shut up, and the thought - and the fact that Gavin slamming into the android only caused him to step back lightly, not even dropping the mug - only riled him further, forcing him to open his mouth again to continue his potty-mouthed tangent before he was interrupted by something other than the android’s rather stern gaze.

“I suggest letting go of me, Detective,” the android spoke somewhat softly, strangely laced with what Gavin almost could’ve sworn was a hinting edge, a tense yet still composed growl, his voice carrying a human note that made the detective wonder why and how he could act so stiffly in the simple moments before. 

~~Something about the android’s voice~~ \- the fact that Gavin would rather progress through his life without another disciplinary notice from Fowler just barely kept him from forcing the android back or slamming one of his balled fists into his side, so the detective decided to simply let the prick off with a growl and a sharp curse under his breath. It was clear that the action had taken Gavin some slightly visible effort - the fact that he had just been forced to back up and off of the male simply from a sharp gaze and a short sentence obviously did not sit well with the man. Almost grudgingly, he took a step backwards, another one of his infamous scowls overtaking his sharp facial features as he quickly willed himself to lock gray eyes with the RK900.

Although he had grudgingly broken physical contact with the android, it was clear that the male was not completely finished with him. Eyes narrowed and brows pressed closer together as his face contorted once again, Gavin opened his mouth with a hunch of his body and sharp squeeze of his left fist.

“What the actual fuck,” the male repeated, although his words were somewhat more poised and careful than usual. “What. The fuck. Was that.”

From a sharp twist of his face and a slow, somewhat subconscious lilt of his eyebrows, it was clear that the 9 words were all Gavin was ready to supply at the moment.

The RK900’s head cocked at this, eyes slowly beginning to glimmer with something that the detective was not too familiar with nor felt really comfortable being subjected to as he brushed off one of his own shoulders. “I don’t understand what you are referring to, Detective. Perhaps if you were more eloquent and voiced your sudden anger properly, I would be able to understand you better,” the android announced, leaning slightly forwards after he was done patting himself down, orange coffee mug still in hand and strangely not broken despite the battering its current holder had taken. “What exactly about me are you currently troubled by, Detective?”

“Fucking prick.” Gavin was incapable of holding in the words at the moment, which came out rather subconsciously - even he looked somewhat surprised at it for a good second, eyes slightly widening before his initial slight surprise evened itself out due to the slowly dawning fact that he didn’t really mind what had just come out of his mouth. Hastily continuing as he noticed the android’s eyes narrowing rather warningly, he growled, “What the fuck did you just do? You can’t just snatch things out of people’s hands like that, it isn’t normal, dickhead.”

“I’m sorry,” said the android, stepping forwards and seemingly holding back a smug expression at the way his quick action had forced the detective backwards as his tone indicated how truly not sorry he was (fucking idiot). “I was under the pretense that you didn’t mind the fact that I wasn’t attempting to blend in by acting like a normal human would, as you didn’t protest at the fact that I spent most of the day computing the incident at the alleyway around 1777 Gratiot Avenue and stood unnaturally still while doing so. I simply wanted to fetch you some more coffee as a symbol of a wanting for cooperation in this partnership, Detective,” the RK900 paused, raising his hand holding the mug to wave it gently. Gavin noticed - with a slight wince - that it indeed was filled with a dark brown liquid. “But I suppose that was not shared. Would you like me to try to blend in from now on, and act more like a human? Since you obviously don't like the fact that what I'm doing apparently 'isn't normal.'” 

Gavin’s eyes widened at this, his brain attempting to speed itself up as it processed the plastic nuisance’s words. Fucking hell, he wasn’t even sure what that meant, and what he had really just said in general. What the fuck did that mean, if Gavin wanted the android to act more like a human? Why the fuck did that matter? Why the fuck was the android acting so weird?

And since when did people get Gavin fucking Reed coffee?

Jesus, he could already tell his life was slowly going to spiral into becoming a spiral of utter shit after all this partner shit. Fucking Fowler - fuckin’ fuck him for trying - and probably succeeding at this point - to ruin Gavin’s life.

“I don’t fuckin’ know,” Gavin muttered shortly afterwards, his disbelief at what the hell was even going on shining through his face still as his voice dipped uncharacteristically low. That was fuckin’ annoying, how often he was forced to quiet down just because of the android’s quips in the expanse of one simple day, but even still his anger was slowly beginning to leak out of him. “Just do what you phuckin’ want, dipshit, and don’t touch my stuff, unless you want your wires to get fucked up.” He was able to work his usual growl back into his voice eventually, sharpening his gaze as he eventually pushed it in himself to move forwards and close his fingers around his mug as he tugged it away from the android.

Fucking androids, not knowing their place, he thought with a small sneer as he flipped and turned away, stomping back to his desk and leaving the android staring after him a number of steps away.

Strangely enough, he noticed, the RK900 didn’t reply to that - just followed him and settled down in a chair situated near the desk beside Gavin’s own, muttering something far too soft about some ‘downloading’ shit that he hardly cared about. 

But it wasn’t like Gavin really cared about that. In fact, it was better that the massive tin can had returned to his rather boring practice of simply _shutting up_.

As he began to resume his practice of flipping through the stacks of paper festering like annoying boils on his desk and sipped subconsciously from his mug directly after deciding that the android was probably trying to poison him, he attempted to calm himself, releasing shallow breaths as he worked.

He recalled some time afterwards, as he and the android became the only beings remaining in the precinct and most of the lights began to shut off, the moment where he had retrieved his coffee mug from the obnoxious, overgrown dildo, which had been long emptied since. For a weird, slightly tense moment, the detective thought rather sluggishly as he began to finish up, the android had brushed his fingers against the middle-aged man’s own.

Funny, it was funny how strange it was, and how tense it had made the usually worked up male initially.

His body slowly failing to function without the aid of coffee, he sank slowly, gently down in his seat and sucked in a sharp breath, somewhat drawing in the attention of his brand new partner.

“Detective?” the android asked eventually as it blinked, peering forwards with a certain sense of curiosity that made it too human.

Fucking hell, he should’ve just asked him to act like just another one of the sculpted lumps of tinfoil. Well, too fucking late, wasn’t it ~~( _I can think of another thing it’s too fucking late for._ )~~?

As the sweet sense of the dark finally able to sink its little claws in him, the detective was slowly lulled into a soft closing of his eyes with the faint, remaining scents of his old coffee and gradually softening calls of the RK900 alone surrounding him.

He thought a last thing as he felt his conscious slowly drift off, the slowly sharpening voice of the android suddenly at his side beginning to sound rather dull, rather muted, as if Gavin was currently listening to the being through a glass wall.

His fingers, he mused, his head slowly lolling backwards, had been rather _warm_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter exists cause i needed something to post randomly and didn't have any great ideas
> 
> hopefully the next one will be somewhat more intriguing, however.


	8. You're Almost Bearable

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Gavin wakes up at the door of the condo, Simon is a _massive dickhead_ , and Ralph likes to act like a hermit.

The detective woke up a couple of hours later, his slim frame curled up at the foot mat of a rather familiar, pigmented light beige door with the numbers 47 marked in gold on its front.

It was strange, awaking to a light silence and the press of a soft, furry material against his back - at least, it was certainly a change from the steady back support of his terminal’s black rolling chair. An uncomfortable one, in fact, he decided as he slowly blinked open his eyes, thin slivers of silver peeking through low lids, cresting above heavy dark bags, as his eyebrows perked lightly to the sight of the condonium’s large chestnut corridor.

“What the fuck?” he muttered to himself softly, lewd mannerisms and language never failing him even in his current state of drowsiness. He gradually pushed himself upwards, propping his elbows on the ground to support his weight as his brain slowly began to catch itself up to speed. 

When the _actual_ fuck had he ended back up in the condominium? And how exactly had he gotten there? Furthermore, why was he sitting right at the foot of the door of the condo, instead of actually curled up on his mattress? 

He was entirely confused as to what was happening until, at last, his brain was able to somewhat reboot itself. The action eventually sent him shooting upwards as he accidentally knocking his own head on the beige door, his entire body gradually tilting backwards due to a sense of slight groggy dizziness remaining with him to cloud his head.

Oh, fuck.

He let out a thick groan as a flare of agony worked his way up his skull, the pain forcing a thin tendril of anger to wrap around his forehead. “Fucking hell,” he moaned, his pinkish fingers flicking upwards to claw through his usually slicked back hair, feeling its messy, tangled texture with a expression of mixed disgust swooping upon his face. “Shit, shit, shit,” he growled once again, biting his tongue gently to prevent himself from hissing out any other curses and drawing the attention of one of the neighbors, who had long since made it clear that they did not appreciate their fellow condo owners’ new roommate’s dirty, grimier manner of speech.

It was only when he was able to force away the initial flares of pain and furiousness that he was able to truly think straight once again, his head for once not clouded by emotion or drowsiness. “That fucking prick!” he shouted suddenly, wobbling as he pushed himself up from his position sprawled across the ground and attempted to balance himself against the door of his current residence.

As he steadied himself slowly, trying to pick through his furious thoughts and mental curses directed solely at his _total plastic bitch_ of a partner, he was taken off guard by the sudden disappearance of the item supporting him. As the door he was leaning on suddenly swung inwards, he stumbled backwards, eyes fluttering wide as his silvery orbs displayed their utter shock. 

“Gavin?” he heard called out, recognizing the voice of Daniel as he stumbled unwillingly into the frame of the moderately heighted android, his manner of movement resembling his usual dance when intoxicated. “Uhmph!” exhaled the PL600 as he was barrelled into, stepping backwards as he latched his synthetic arms around Gavin’s slender frame.

“Ah, fuck!” the middle-aged detective yelled, leaning his entire weight on the android for a good minute as his breath was knocked out of him. Panting to regain his currently swaying, unruly balance, he was eventually forced forwards by a sharp push exhibited from the android on what he would’ve assumed was instinct - if Dan wasn’t a literal hunk of molded plastic, however (not like he’d ever say that to his face, though - Gavin could be a massive fucking coward when it came to confronting his three Barbies of roommates on touchier subjects).

The 36-year-old was finally able to somewhat snap himself out of his shaken stupor, managing to balance himself on his two feet without a structure for a good moment. His head tilting mostly subconsciously - although partially due to the misfortunate, recent incident - as he openly gawked at his roommate, he yelled, “What the fuck was that?”

It was often easier to resort to the basics, he found, when shocked.

Daniel, on the other hand, simply gawked back, the circular LED pulsing a bright yellow on his temple. “I could ask you the same,” he replied slowly, each of his words pushed gradually out of his mouth with every pop and curl of his tongue. Strangely enough, he was a rather expressive speaker, especially for an android - Gavin had never paid it much mind, but it was rather intriguing now that he thought about it, his brain subject to some sort of dizzy tiredness that really resembled how he acted when he was intoxicated. “I didn’t expect you to be falling into me the moment I opened the door, Gav.” He paused to lean slightly forwards, his face wracked thickly with worry. “Are you _drunk_?”

“Oh - no, fuck no!” Gavin spat, crossing his arms and placing what he assumed was his usual _I’m-fucking-pissed_ expression on his face to form what he hoped was a rather stoic look (and what was really rather the opposite, consisting of a lean, short man trying to scowl up at a rather confused android). “You fucking know I’ve been cutting myself off, Dan, I fucking - whatever, doesn’t matter. The problem is I fell asleep at the precinct and woke up curled in a little ball at the doormat,” he continued, pausing to jerk his thumb back at the corridor. "Well, I'definitely didn't walk myself down there, so I dunno what the fuck's goin' on."

As Daniel furrowed his pale brows and opened his mouth to reply, a voice cut in from nowhere, registering in Gavin’s head as Simon’s (of course it was Simon - he was talking to Daniel right then and Ralph was a bit more reclusive, interrupting many less conversations than the previously Jericho obsessed android) own. “Oh, Gavin’s finally awake - hey, Gav, nice to see you up,” he commented as he rounded the corner, crossing into the silvery marble themed kitchen to lightly pick up a small, unidentifiable red fruit from a clear bowl sitting on the counter. 

“Nice to see you up?” the detective questioned, a hint of anger still remaining in his voice as he pondered what the hell that was supposed to mean. “The fuck you talkin’ abo-” His eyes only widened as he paused his own speech, the flaring rage in his eyes indicating he had quickly figured out exactly what Simon had been hinting at. His gray-brown orbs rapidly began to fill themselves with uneven, impulsive anger as the male android tossed the small, red fruit - God, was that a shriveled raisin or something? - from hand to hand, seemingly teasing himself as it never fully reached his lips.

“You motherfu - you did _not_ ,” Gavin paused, his mouth drying up as his tongue seemed to coil itself like a fitful snake. “You **fucking piece of** -”

“Watch your language, Gav,” simply replied Simon, his tone so very annoyingly, obnoxiously calm as a teasing glint worked itself into his eyes. It was rather obvious that he was finding it currently difficult to stifle a sharp, barking laugh.

Oh, he did fucking _not._

Oh, no.

“You pie-” Gavin cut himself off, choosing actions instead of words as he lunged forwards, readying himself to wrap his fingers around the android’s throat even though he knew his shitty, shitty roommate didn’t have to breath until he was suddenly pulled back, restricted from choking the life out of the shitty tin can.

He whipped backwards, tilting his face and directing his eyes at the other blonde nuisance as he noticed a pale hand coil around his bicep. “Fucking - Dan,” he warned with a light lilt of his voice, narrowing his eyes as he leaned forwards. He opened his mouth to spit out something somewhat threatening before he was forced to push some of the anger out of him from the simplicity and gentleness lingering in the PL600’s gaze with a sigh, his temper gradually sinking under the light pressure of the soft look directed towards him.

Fucking hell, curse him for having such a huge weakness for his annoying plastic blonde roommates.

Gavin sighed, his breathing still ragged from the scraps of lingering exhaustion and anger clinging onto him, as he shook himself out of Daniel’s gaze. “Nah, 'm fine, yeah, promise I won’t kill him,” he muttered with a dismissive hand motion as the android moved to grab his arm once again, only turning when his roommate gave him a somewhat stern look but retracting his hand. 

“You - I’m not fucking done with you, dickhead,” the detective warned, glaring at the other android and feeling sparks of slowly, once again rekindling anger when his eyes drunk in Simon’s entirely amused expression, and the android’s difficulty in choking down stuttering giggles.

The coy android's appearance was entirely misleading, he thought promptly, sharpening his own gaze. After all, who would believe such a shy, sweet looking fellow to be such a _literal dickhead_?

“Ah, sorry, Gavin. You just seemed so peaceful,” Simon apologized, the lightly, jokingly malicious glint in his ever lovely eyes indicating exactly how not sorry he was. “Really, I didn’t want to wake you, Gav, so I just stepped over you. Besides, you were so drowsy you didn’t even notice that-” he paused his speech to raise his hand and point at Gavin’s forehead, making the man’s eyes flick upwards in surprise. "So I just decided to leave you be. Everybody knows how cranky you get, anyways, Gav, you can't blame me for wanting to keep my thirium pump intact." He finished with a crooked grin - a crooked grin that Gavin actually still wanted to make even more crooked for a good moment.

“What?”

“Here.” He strode over from his position leaned across one of the kitchen counters, reaching out with his only free, willowy - rather lady-like so, in fact, Gavin thought rather pettily - hands to pluck and rip something from the detective’s face that he hadn’t even noticed moments before.

Flinching at the impact, Gavin snatched the object from the android’s hands, a bit of his irritation still sparkling in the mannerisms he employed when moving. It was only when he was clasping it in his left hand that he noticed that it was a light green post-it note.

Weirdly perfect handwriting was scrawled across its surface, striking words as its black pigment - conjured from the ink of a pen, Gavin decided - contrasted with the lightness of the pigment sitting behind it. 

It read a couple of words that brought a surging red colour to the man’s face as Daniel read behind him.

**" _Fell asleep at the precinct. Since I found his address on a sticky note at his terminal indicating where he lived and who he lived with, I carried him, put him in a cab, and ensured he returned safely. Of course, since nobody answered the door, I did choose simply to leave him on the doormat._**

**_Do let him in or wake him up when you feel necessary. However, he behaved quite like a childish prick today, so if you would leave him sitting here for a while, that would be absolutely excellent._ **

**__**

**_And Gavin, assuming you’re reading this - and I know you will be, as I’m counting on you, Daniel, Ralph, and Simon, to make sure of it - please do try not to break something when you finish reading this. I know you’ve got quite the rather obnoxiously explosive temper, but I’m sure you’ve got a small bit of self control crawling up in the rank hole where half of your brain should be._ **

**__**

**_Again, please do try not to hurt somebody whilst or after reading this note. I’d rather not have you acting like a childish prick tomorrow as well - after all, you’re almost bearable in the short moments where you’re acting somewhat normal. Or, at least, to an an extent._ **

**__**

**_\- RK, your new partner._ " **

**__**

**__**

Initially, he was not sure if the furious red colour that had so smoothly swept over his features was one caused by anger, being a flush of rage, or if it was a simple blush. After rereading the note a couple of quick times by raking his gaze up and down the post-it note, he was fairly sure it was a flush of _rage._

**__**

Fucking hell.

**__**

‘Obnoxiously explosive temper’?

**__**

What the fuck was he talking about?

**__**

The haze of red only brightened on Gavin’s face when his ears caught the light chuckles exhibited by the usually so careful android standing slightly behind him.

**__**

“Your new partner seems rather delightful,” Simon drawled with a smile once his head was removed from its hunched position as he burried it into the small paper, popping the mysterious fruit into his mouth at last. “I’d love to meet him.”

**__**

Gavin simply scowled, suddenly overwhelmed by the conflicting emotions and remaining exhaustion racking his body - too much so, in fact, to argue much or yell at the androids much longer. He was rather thankful that Ralph, once again, had decided to remain acting like somewhat of a reclusive eremite - the last thing he even wanted was for the final blonde roommate to involve himself in the matter. “Well, you’re not gonna, if I have anything to do with it,” he growled, slowly withdrawing towards his room as his fist closed around the post-it note still in hand.

**__**

“If we’re going to meet him, you certainly won’t,” the android called finally as Gavin slipped in the confines of his bedroom at last, slamming the brown door behind him like an angsty teenager.

**__**

Once protected in the safe corner that was his ‘temporary’ bedroom, he sank downwards and pressed his back against the door with a soft sigh. He raked his hand through his hair with another final shaky breath as he uncrinckled the post-it note from under his fist, reading it over once again.

**__**

As the rather scruffy and currently disgruntled detective somewhat subconsciously began to replay all of the words etched on the note in his head, suddenly unable to draw his eyes away, he inhaled lightly yet somewhat, somehow _painfully_.

**__**

‘Please do try not to break something when you finish reading this.’ Ha.

**__**

He decided he was going to have some trouble doing just that.

**__**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yikes im slowly running out of things to write about
> 
> remember to leave a comment, kudos, etc.  
> i might write a little more about a character in dbh that you guys particularly like/write a little cameo for one of your own ocs if you drop a comment ;)
> 
> but regardless i'm going to try to insert more of ralph, one of the greatest blonde bimbos of the detroit universe


	9. Waiting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shorter chapter. Serves sort of as an interlude of sorts.

In the end, he failed in his task, shouldering a small, rather inexpensive lamp from its position on his brown bedside drawer. Of course, it wasn’t particularly out of his own rage - he had accidentally knocked down the bedside ornament while stumbling onto his bed, all furious thoughts directed towards the note reluctantly abandoned - or so he would rather explain as.

Uninterested in attempting to clean himself up (or really display any hygienical practices for the day) in a sudden sense of exhaustion, he allowed his eyelids to heavily flutter shut. For a moment, he squeezed them tightly, a drying sense of fear coming to nip at his temple of the happenings gnawing at him from the past, the comings of the future, the clawing thoughts - _accusations_ \- that tended to take his mind by storm when the darkness the dusk brought appeared.

Fear. There was always fear, always cowardice when it came to Gavin - or at least, behind closed doors, where those who would immediately stop him (if they were to find out) could retain no grasp on him, could not see him, where they assumed he was simply as fine as he was elsewhere.

Yet, even with the chilling sense of fear budding in his temple, he found that that night held hardly any accusations, no shocking, harsh calls - simply a strange, newer silence that held a certain emptiness that he hadn’t leaped into in a very long time.

The sense was strange - it was new, for once, and Gavin was not sure if he liked that, wasn’t sure if he liked the disappearance of the accusing words and harsh, personal jabs that swirled in his brain, unseen by all others but himself.

Shivering, he squeezed his eyes shut tighter, almost afraid to open them - as if if he were to, the thoughts would all rush abruptly back to his head, clouding his thoughts.

But perhaps he was afraid to open his eyes for an entirely different reason altogether.

For a moment, it could’ve seemed as if he actually missed the thoughts, actually _wanted them_ or at least thought that he deserved them.

But for a moment, of course. Because thinking that would be foolish - it would be utter nonsense, some sort of sappy shit that the Gavin others knew would never, ever partake in.

Still, as the tightness and tenseness held in his eyes slowly loosened and slackened their squeezing pressure, Gavin thought.

Possibly the Gavin others knew, the only Gavin exposed to the light of the day and the exposure of the outside world, would never act like so, would scoff at such an action and would laugh in the faces of those that indulged in such.

But the Gavin tucked away, the _other_ Gavin, in a sense, the Gavin tucked behind locked doors, awaiting the return of the original? 

Perhaps _that_ Gavin wasn’t so unfamiliar to that at all.

\---

An eon - or perhaps only an hour or so - later, Gavin Reed laid in the dark.

Occasionally, he would spasm once, his limbs quivering slightly here and there, but otherwise the man lay entirely still. In the dark, it was almost completely impossible to determine that he was still awake, having not caught a simple minute of sleep despite all of his struggling, despite the squeezing of his thick, darkened eyelids.

He was still awake, still flooded by the simple, plain emptiness of the foreign darkness, simply sitting in the dark.

Waiting.

Not thinking, not questioning, not accusing himself of playing such a coward, such a fool, such a simple jackass, completely incapable of doing something right for once in his goddamn life.

Simply waiting.

For what, he realized, he was hardly sure.

\---

He laid awake for quite a while after that, simply waiting. Perhaps of which was for something familiar - something simply _recognizable_ to lull him to a sleep, a deeper, more proper sleep he was hardly allowed, had hardly taken upon for the last two years.

It was only when his mind slowly began to form the image of a pale face, a smug yet strangely, almost ethereally soft smile, and the sharp lines of startlingly gray eyes that he was able to sink into the tender jaws of deep sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i perceive the imagined facial aspects at the end to be elle's own, but you guys can really perceive them as anyone's ~~(especially your favorite copy of the android sent by cyberlife)~~. it really depends on how you see gav right now. 
> 
> normal chapters will probably be the norm from now on, but i may insert a similar interlude every now and then


	10. Fuck, Fuck, Fuck

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Gavin isn't pissed (as he should be, at least), the RK900 tries out coin tricks like his cool older brother, and _fuck._

Gavin, extremely surprisingly, wasn’t actually _that_ fucking pissed.

Or, at least, he wasn’t as pissed as he definitely should’ve been, or had the right to be.

He meant, his literal dildo of a partner had practically stolen his coffee mug, let him fall asleep at the precinct, probably flitted through his stuff to find his new address and the names of his roommates, dumped him at the door of his condo like a fucking abandoned baby or some shit, and stuck a post-it note on him like he was a sad little gift for a sick coworker, and he was only mildly irritated.

That was a fucking _achievement_ , if you asked him.

But, then again, he had been experiencing wilder mood swings recently, acting more amiable than usual one day and snapping into a clipped sharpness the next. But that was just Gavin Reed for you - he’d always been quite erratic, he supposed, and there was nothing really to be done about that.

He’d also had a couple days of simple, domestic, paperwork-filled days in the precinct to cool off to be credited towards his temperament. Seeing that he was still slightly mad, perhaps it was actually disappointing how pissed Gavin was. 

Well, actually, it really was. After all, he’d had a not-so-unexpectedly difficult time giving the android a good clout to one of his ridiculously sculpted cheekbones the day after the strange little incident.

Somewhat shakily, he raised a bony hand to his face, scrubbing at the pockets of skin below his eyes. He gave a short, abrupt sigh before lowering the same slim appendage to remove his silver car keys from their slot, listening to the quick spluttering of the engine and the disappearance of its usual humm.

Recently, he and his partner had been cleared for a simple investigation - a quick little chat, as Fowler had so carefully put it, he recalled - in the apartment of a younger man that had been spotted indulging in ‘suspicious activity,’ as reported by the neighbors. Gavin, for one, was fairly sure that the investigation was ‘gonna be a total dead end, 100% fo’ fucking sure.’ Mostly because he didn’t trust rich bitches to get worried about things that were actually worth worrying about, but his opinion was ignored (despite all of his _eloquently_ put points), and he and his new cheery fuckface of a partner were forced to drive out to the man’s little abode nevertheless.

He exhaled quite roughly, his breathing as irregularly gruff as it tended to be, before angling his face down to where his keys were clenched loosely. His partner, as cheerful as he had seemed initially - fucking prick he was; Gavin ~~half~~ wished that the android would just switch back to exhibiting the weird, mechanical aura he occasionally practiced - had been quite silent on the car ride to the suspect’s home. His behavior was beginning to draw out a small, dawning sense of suspicion from the detective, who opened his mouth to speak with nothing more than a slight tilt of his head in the general direction of the android.

“Something malfunction, dildo?” the detective grunted, eyeing the items resting in his palm as he rolled them lightly about. It was only when he was seemingly satisfied by own light quirks that he fully raised his head, directing the focus of his large, gray-brown eyes upon the RK900, who blinked at the sudden attention. 

The RK900’s eyes lifted upwards slightly, allowing Gavin a fuller view of their crisply cool colours and what he was sure was mimicked surprise swirling about. “I beg your pardon?” the android asked after a pause, his head not tilting for once and his dark, shapely eyebrows raising in its place. For a moment, if you ignored his spinning blue LED, you could’ve almost imagined that he was a human.

_Real._

But Gavin would never give him credit for that - would never give him credit for anything good that he did, ever, he decided rather smugly - so he instead focused on the android’s strange, unpredictable mannerisms, wondering how the being could act like one of them shitty, lumpy little robots created for an ancient school event called a ‘science fair’ one moment and a proper human the next. Hell, Gavin thought _he_ was a fairly erratic guy.

He supposed that the RK900’s behavior could’ve been credited towards his rather small level of experience with deviancy, and what he had been told was its ‘mood swings and stranger behavior’ (not like Gavin had really been interested or been paying attention when he had been lectured about the field after scorning a PC200), but he would rather think that it was the simple idiocy of the android acting up than something complicated stirring in the deeper parts of the android’s wires.

Gavin was already beginning to experience short flares of familiar anger from the android’s far-too-fancy manner of speech (did his dick of a half-brother have to really program his little toys to talk so pretentiously?), and he was later forced to shove down the emotion in slight embarrassment of his own childishness. “Y’ haven’t spoken since we left the precinct. Something in your wires fuck up?” he asked, loosening the usually gruff tone in his voice to make himself sound more nonchalant and smooth.

Which was for the case, of course. After all, if the suspect really was guilty, Gavin was fairly sure that he’d have a better time coaxing some information out of him with a lighter, more calming tone, or at least a tone that was purposefully harsh - in case he had to play out the whole ‘bad cop’ trope that the older cinemas had once been particularly fond of (he’d somewhat been fond of the trope himself - he’d brought his favorite clunky GLOCK 76 for the occasion, making Simon laugh and ask him who the lucky person was). The interrogation method had always been surprisingly amusing and fun for such a grim act, anyways.

“No,” the android chased after Gavin’s own words slowly, his voice slightly drawling in a manner that made appear as if he was speaking to a rather small child. Perhaps one from the innocent ages of 3 to 6 years old, in fact, a thought that hardly kept Gavin from grinding his teeth together. “I have simply been processing information. Or thinking,” he added, as if he had just realized that he shouldn’t have used such ‘big words’ around the detective.

The middle aged male opened his mouth to quickly bite out what was a scathing response to him - perhaps something commonly articulate along the lines of _’wow, didn’t know overgrown toasters could think’_ \- before closing it with a clatter of his ivory teeth. 

It was definitely not like he was even considering the thought of being somewhat nice to the dickhead - a couple days was certainly not enough time for someone to warm up to Gavin Reed, after all, or at least for Gavin Reed to warm up to someone. He had actually simply not wanted to get lectured about the ‘new aspects of androids that came with the short appearance of deviancy’ or whatever the actual _fuck_ for the next 30 minutes.

“Oh,” he simply remarked. He wasn’t sure if he really wanted to add anything on out of disinterest in continuing the conversation, so he simply clamped his mouth shut and stared.

“Ah, yes, ‘oh’ indeed,” smugly snipped the RK900, a small grin stretching across his synthetic, flushed lips. He seemed rather smug at the fact that he had just succeeded in minimizing the detective into only being capable of responding with a single word, rather smug at the _totally untrue_ notion that the detective was incapable of perceiving androids actually thinking. “As eloquently put as always, Detective.”

Although initially mad, Gavin was quite shocked to see a more dull flare of anger poke up from his gut after the android spoke. Usually the male would’ve snapped at the android, ruining the light, teasing air that the RK900’s words brought, but he found in the moment that they weren’t the worse, weren’t particularly nagging at him. At least, they weren’t as biting as other thoughts, other things that had dulled, things that he was currently forcing back because _no, he was not allowed to think about that, fucking hell, Gavin fucking Reed get your shit together -_

A simple closing of his fist over his heavy car keys sufficed to rid him of the sharpest edges of his anger, shocking the male. 

The biggest surprise from the easy dissipation of his anger was the fact that the action was extremely _different._

After all, it was extremely common for the detective to be subjected to the harsh, everyday struggle that was overcoming his own vividly honed furies, and what he assumed was supposed to be a pleasing surprise was more of a _scary_ one, if anything.

He meant, he _was_ 37 years old, and, as Fowler and younger coworkers seemed to like to snidely note about him and Hank, old dogs really couldn’t learn new tricks. 

‘New tricks,’ of course, seemed to include calming himself down and becoming more of a mellow person.

Swallowing a newly appearing lump in his throat, he averted his gaze from the android’s, letting his mind flit away briefly before he spoke. “F’cough, you dick, we got work to do,” he coughed, managing to work some of his older bite into his voice as he spoke. 

The moment seemed to raise a bit of suspicion - or, at least, interest - from the RK900, but the android seemed not to react to it besides a mostly unnoticeable raise of his left eyebrow. He simply bobbed his head downwards, his action resembling a slight nod, before exiting the vehicle without another word.

Slightly confused by the fact that the android had actually allowed him to get the last word - from the post-it note to the clipped, abrupt little conversations they often held around the precinct, he had never properly allowed Gavin to finish off a discussion with an intelligible or actually eloquent retort - the detective started in his seat, nearly allowing his keys to slip out of his hands, which seemed to be profusely sweating.

Strange. When had that happened?

His thin fingers scrabbled about the set of silver keys as they twisted through the air, a jolt of insensible fear simply caused by the notion of his keys dropping arcing through his lean body as he just barely closed his fist over the item. Huffing slightly afterwards, a crimson haze took his face with a heated slide, splashes of light rose painting his cheekbones as he inhaled deeply.

Fuck, he’d gotten slightly winded simply from almost dropping his keys in his car. How the fuck was he supposed to act potentially threatening (again, catering to the rather delicious idea of Gavin acting as a ‘bad cop’ trope, a thing that Gavin was now contemplating whether or not he had a kink on) towards a grown fuckin’ man?

He exited the car shortly, swinging the door shut with a somewhat startling, overly harsh force. The sharp noise that emanated from the action made him wince visibly, an action that would’ve confused those that didn’t know him. Gavin had always had a rather strange fondness for his car - a fondness that was only beaten by his weird little love for his surprisingly not-shitty motorcycle (but that was to be expected - after all, it _was_ still one of his only possessions given to him from his mother) - and had practiced a habit of treating it nicely despite its rough condition. Occasionally, he would behave more kindly to his own car than other people, not to mention overgrown toasters - especially the fucked up toaster himself - so his behavior tended to be at the butt of Tina and Chris’s short jokes.

The male was fairly sure that he didn’t even need to glance at his partner to know that he was having a difficult time holding back choked sniggers at his expense, and at the quite visible wince he had displayed. Scowling immediately, he growled, “Shut the fuck up,” his shoulders squared as he aimed a sharp glare at the android. The RK900 was as stoic as he had originally been, appearing as if he had never even experienced a single moment where it had been difficult suppressing barking giggles. However, the detective was still somewhat sure that he had caught a small, crooked grin spreading itself on the android’s face in a short moment, even as the masterful stoicness of the RK900’s expression began to convince him otherwise.

Wisely, the android also chose not to respond to Gavin’s slightly half-hearted - or, at least, bite lacking - snarl with one of his usual quips, instead allowing him a light twinkle of his gray eyes before trotting off in the direction of the building he had parked in front of.

Scowl never fully disappearing from his worn face, Detective Reed tramped after the android, unwilling to trot at his heels like a silent, obedient little hound. 

The building, the detective noted up close, was just as up-scale as the rest of the neighborhood. Its edges and corners were traced thinly in a clean ivory colour that he had never been personally fond of (the shit had always seemed too pretentiously extra for him), and each apartment had small, individual glass balconies. A pair of outreaching, carmelly yellow coffeetrees were rooted in front of the building, sheared into the sort of perfectly round shape that could almost hurt Gavin’s eyes.

When he caught up to the android, he found that the android was already standing at the apartment’s shiny intercom, his lips forming quiet words as he spoke to the person he had called. Gavin was only capable of catching a short “Detroit Police Department” and “yeah” before a sharp buzzing noise cut through his ears, nearly making him jump.

He had never been fond of the sound, even after being forced to live with it for over 2 years at Ralph’s apartment complex, and its harsh, sudden coming was a sharp reminder, he supposed.

The suspect’s apartment ended up to be located on one of the lower floors, although the two were still forced to enter a silvery, overly clean elevator to access it. As empty as the apartment complex and elevator were, Gavin still felt his skin begin to rouse itself and creep about simply from him entering the building - he’d never felt very comfortable entering unfamiliar places as most people, but entering unfamiliar and prissily pretty places were simply unbearable for him.

He found that his partner, on the other hand, seemed perfectly at ease with the new environment. He wasn’t entirely surprised - the plastic bitch was worth more than his car, motorcycle, and apartment combined, and, judging by the fact that he was supposed to be ‘Cyberlife’s finest’ or some shit, he probably wasn’t even new to the whole situation.

What annoyed him, however, was the light clinking noises that seemed to be emanating from the android. With further inspection, the detective discovered that the strange, quieter sounders seemed to actually be coming from the android’s clumsy movements with a small, dull gray coin. He seemed to be tossing it from hand to hand, attempting to flick it about in hand movements that vaguely resembled each other that always ended in the object thudding to the ground.

Simply the sight and noises generated from the action started burning an angry pit in Gavin’s stomach, forcing him to tilt suddenly to the side to jolt into the android’s shoulder. “Quit it,” he growled, eyes narrowed as he gazed upwards at the RK900’s face. It was somewhat gratifying to see a flash of surprise arc through the male’s sharply structured face, but mostly to see the coin drop quickly to the ground and meld with the elevator’s silvery background.

The android’s LED pulsed a brilliant yellow as he opened his mouth to speak, his brows pushing forwards to knit together. “Excuse me, Detective?” he simply asked, staring down at the rather pissed off detective, who experienced a strange jolt of _disappointment_ , actually, from the fact that the RK900 hadn’t appeared furious or even had his LED flash red at the sudden movement,

“It’s fuckin’ annoying. Why the fuck are you playin’ with coins, anyways?” he snipped, elbowing the android and wondering how he hadn’t noticed how firmly built the idiot was before from the stiffness held in his side.

“Oh. I have simply noted that my predecessor, Connor, who I am told is a successful deviant, exhibits such habits as to fiddling with coins and displaying human-like tendencies. I was simply practicing doing so to attempt to grow more accustomed to deviancy, or perhaps, as I have heard been put, ‘to fit in,' as Connor seems to be doing excellently." 

Gavin glowered at the male, shaking his head slightly. “Well, now it’s fuckin’ stupid _and_ annoying. Don’t do it again.” His attention was drawn elsewhere when the elevator’s doors slid smoothly open with a gentle ‘ding,’ and it was only when he had quickly regained his bearings that he added, “Wouldn’t wanna end up like your numbingly dumb puppydog of a predecessor, right?”

He left the android with his dark, wispy pupils slightly blown and his full, shapely lips parted in what he assumed was simulated shock (it could’ve been from Gavin’s scorn of Connor, who had been taking an interest in his partner for the last couple days, but he presumed it was more likely that it was from the hidden, underlying compliment he had directed towards the android).

His face twisted into a half-scowl, half-smile as he walked. _Yeah, don't get so fuckin' used to it._

As he stopped directly in front of a mahogany door marked with 19 in gold and brought his knuckles forwards, he was rather satisfied to hear footsteps quickly trot after him and to see a slight, bluish hue covering the android’s cheekbones when he appeared beside him. He opened his mouth to release a snide little comment, a little extra kick to push his luck that would probably result in a verbal beatdown (but fuck if that was ever gonna make Gavin pussy out), when the door swung open inches from the two’s faces.

“Hello, this Detective Reed.” the RK900 announced the moment the door opened, face constricted into calm, cool professionalism - a face that Gavin suddenly found difficulty in mimicking (after all, the dickhead hadn’t even let him introduce himself, and decided to do it _for_ Gavin as if he couldn’t do it himself). He nodded shortly at the human, his gray eyes seemingly commanding him to pull up his badge as he refused to introduce himself. "We're from the Detroit Police Department, as I mentioned."

The commanding, dominant nature that the android had taken upon did not fail to stir up ready tendrils of anger resting in Gavin’s stomach. He’d never been a big fan of submitting to others, which was why he had originally had a difficult time getting along with Hank (occasionally, he still did) and still had to avoid Fowler occasionally to avoid losing his job. 

Strangling the spikes in the need for matching - and rivalling; the detective had always been a bit too competitive for his own good - the android’s professionalism, the 37-year-old simply played along, removing the item from his jacket’s front pocket and flashing it at the suspect.

He was able to get a good look of the man while he studied his badge, gratified that he was capable of getting a chance to peer further at the suspect and not be forced to judge all of his thoughts off of a grainy little picture. His hair was of a rusty orange colour, also of moderate length and a neatness that rivalled even the RK900’s. He carried a fashionably scruffy beard that nearly made Gavin squirm out of self consciousness (really, it put his to fuckin’ shame), and wore clothing that was crisp and what he would assume was called ‘modernly fashionable,’ although slightly wrinkled. 

There was nothing particularly intriguing about him - the thing that was most noticeable was simply a slight tan upon his skin that ended around his wrists, making Gavin assume that he had been on a holiday recently. Even the way he held himself was ordinary - there was no slightly aggressive squaring of the shoulders, no sharp or piercing gaze, things exhibited by the detective and his partner themselves.

Overall, Gavin did not particularly find him suspicious looking or very shady at all. Certainly not somebody that would even hate androids or other people, let alone stoop to ruthlessly murdering three of them.

“Ah, hello there, I’m Samuel Reyn...may I ask why you've come?” the man asked after staring in strange awe at Gavin’s badge, a tone of slightly dazed confusion working itself into his rather docile voice. "You said something about questioning on the intercom, but I didn't fully catch it."

 _That’s weird,_ Gavin thought. He had assumed that somebody from the station would’ve debriefed the man and informed him that the two were supposed to stop by at his apartment, but the stranger’s tone of perplexity seemed somewhat genuine. The fact that the stranger's knowledge of the event came fully from the short debriefing the RK900 had just given him was a light sign that he hadn't received the call, one way or another. _Maybe he just forgot._

Gavin cleared his throat, interrupting the android as he opened his mouth and ensuring that he would be the one to take the initiative in the investigation, even for a moment’s time. “Ahem. As the _android_ -” he delicately paused for a small amount of time before uttering the word ‘android,’ making sure to inject a bit of loathing in his voice that had sprung up from the RK900’s behavior, “explained, I’m Detective Reed. I’m sure you’ve heard of an accident that occurred a’round your neighborhood recently. We just need to ask you a couple questions about it, and we’ll be on our way, Mr. Reyn.”

His manner of speech was surprisingly fluid after he was done subtly scorning his partner, as plain as his words seemed, seemingly shocking the android - or, at least, judging from the twitching expression on his face, catching him off guard. The middle aged man felt a small smirk tug needily at his lips at that, not feeling at all guilty about the fact that he had just allowed himself to feel proud of himself simply from winding his new partner.

But Gavin had always found pride in doing the more hands-on aspects of his job in front of others - they tended to think that scruffy old Gavin was as shit as his job as the fuckfaced lieutenant himself had been the moment he had made a habit of wrapping his pale little fingers around bottles of cheap whisky, which tended to turn out to be poorly judged conclusions. The detective prided himself, after all, in being able to demonstrate how damn good he was when it came to the more diplomatic sides of his job (although getting along with coworkers was a definitive exception to that), and his pride was not often wrongly put.

And, well, he _did_ like to think himself a charming person, he mused to himself.

“Oh,” Samuel responded after a light pause, thick eyebrows knitting together and slightly resembling old orange caterpillars crawling after each other. “Oh, that incident...That was truly dreadful. Still, I don’t recall receiving a phone call. I must’ve forgotten - ah, well, come in, sit down. I’ll fix you something if you’d like - tea?” he added as he withdrew into his home, pulling the door a little wider open to allow the detective access into his home.

Gavin silently noted how he did not seem to address the RK900, only giving Gavin himself a light glance as he awaited his response and speaking with a ‘you’ instead of a ‘you two’ or ‘you both.’ Still, the man simply could’ve been speaking out of regards to the fact that androids did not need to consume fluids or solids, and that some couldn’t entirely, so he did not pay much attention to the fact for the time being. 

“Alright. No, thanks, I’m not a big fan of tea,” Gavin responded, stepping into the man’s abode and beginning to inspect the new surroundings.

He was not very surprised by the apartment. It was overall what you would expect of a slightly high end apartment in a good neighborhood - furnished with moderately expensive decorations of decent quality, scrubbed clean around the edges and such, and overall very coordinated and homely. It was the sort of apartment that you would not expect a younger single person to be owning, but perhaps a middle aged single person with a decent job owning it was not so very odd.

The owner of the apartment had disappeared in the direction of the toilets and kitchen, making Gavin assume that he was not supposed to follow. He simply took a seat at the neat, softly beige chair closest to the entrance, straightening his back against the rather stiff piece of furniture to resemble a sitting position that was not hardly close to the lazy sprawl the male took upon at the workplace. The RK900, he noticed, only slightly stepped into the apartment, striding a step or two forwards to exit the doorway and stand in a corner not too far from Gavin.

He assumed that the RK900 had taken the position in mind of the stranger’s possible disliking of androids and ruthlessness (judging from the fact that if he was really guilty, he had ripped out the heads of three beings), which he grudgingly admitted to himself was rather clever. He had selected a spot that was close to Gavin and slightly obvious to remind the suspect that he was still very much there, but he had not sit down at all.

Although that could’ve been out of dislike of _Gavin._ But, since he had just thought that he would rather think himself charming, the detective decided not to consider that possibility for long.

The redheaded man appeared back in the entry room a couple of moments later, a small, white porcelain cup in hand. He trotted over to a light, creamily coloured loveseat beside the detective’s own chair, raising the cup to his lips as a slight nod seemed to indicate that he was perfectly ready for the two’s questions.

“Were you anywhere near,” Gavin started, cutting to the chase before pausing to stare at something messily scrawled in black ink on his wrist, “1226 3rd Street at around 9:50 PM this Monday?” 

A pause.

Gavin was not sure if Samuel was trying to recollect where he was at the time or attempting to calm himself in order to not seem very guilty when he responds.

“No, I don’t believe so,” he responded slowly, speaking at a pace that had a possibility of being suspicious but a tone that seemed perfectly acceptable. “I’m fairly sure I was really busy earlier that day, and had gone home tired and - oh, yes, I went to bed early. I wasn’t even awake at that time.”

“Alright,” said Gavin, incapable of determining for himself whether or not Samuel sounded very suspicious at all. His pause had unnerved him, but the calm tone he had taken upon somewhat convinced the detective he wasn’t entirely lying initially. He didn’t bother to write down the man’s response before he continued - he was perfectly sure that the Robocop himself was capable of recording the conversation or, at the very least, remembering it to recall the facts afterwards. He did, however, pause to try to recall what he had been tasked with asking the male - there had been a couple of certain questions he was required to inquire about, certain questions that weren’t as casual or slightly inconspicuous as they would’ve been if they were easy to work with. 

The next one he remembered was a perfect example of such. 

“Do you or do you not own the following weapons or items,” Gavin said, continuing to prattle off a list of items that were presumed to have been behind some of the wounds from the victims that made him slightly cringe. ‘Were you here at this time and at this date’ never transitioned well to ‘do you own the following insanely dangerous and even illegal - for some - weapons,’ after all.

“No,” replied the redhead with a firm shake of his head. “I don’t believe in violence, so I don’t own a lot of weapons.” 

“Okay.” The detective continued to push forth a number of rather scandalizing questions - or, in his opinion, at least, since ‘do you have a history with drugs, or have medical problems with diseases and problems like amnesia, Alzheimer’s disease, etcetera’ did not seem like a very appropriate or casual conversational topic to him - and received mostly normal, perfectly fine answers to each. He was decently convinced of the man’s innocence when he stood up to take his leave, legs a little numb and tired from the amount of time he had spent sitting down and speaking to Mr. Reyn. 

“Thank you for your time, Mr. Reyn. We’ll contact you if we need to speak to you again, or question you further,” Gavin finished off by working a subtly intimidating, more aggressive tone into his voice with his last sentence, attempting to gage the male’s reaction to the light threatening he had just been subjected to. Initially, Samuel seemed somewhat startled and even fearful from the tone, but judging from his innocent answers and very brief period of time needed to get over the initial shock, he was simply fearful of being bothered further or convicted inappropriately, Gavin decided. 

“Ah, thank you, Detective,” the man responded, pausing to set down his drained mug and fish something out of his jeans pocket. Upon further inspection, the detective noticed that it was a small slip of white paper with a couple of numbers scrawled in lead across it. “Here’s my number. You probably already have it at your station, but you can keep the slip in case you lose it, or you need to contact me personally,” he offered with a small smile, the first that Gavin had seen since meeting the man.

Admittedly, it took the male quite some time to decipher what Mr. Reyn had implied, and even more so to unclench his throat and take the paper from his hands. He told himself that he couldn’t have been blamed - after all, usually the only rich people who hit on him tended to be young things expecting him to be their first bad mistake of many (or not so many, if their parents seemed to have anything to do with it), and the man hadn’t exhibited a single bit of interest in Gavin from the start of the meeting anyways. 

A small bit of colouration reaching his cheeks, he cleared his throat and muttered a not-so-articulate “thanks” as he received the paper. 

“You’re welcome,” the man replied somewhat shyly, watching the detective clear his throat once again and moisten his lips at the response.

Gavin stepped towards his partner - of whom he noticed had been eerily frowny and silent throughout the entire exchange - and towards the door, of which had been closed. Pulling it open with a simple twist of his wrist and stepping halfway through it, he twisted his body backwards slightly to call, “Alright, I’ll, uh, see you around, Mr. Reyn,” before exiting the apartment fully.

He squinted down at the little piece of paper, seemingly memorizing the words as his partner stepped out beside him and shut the door behind himself. After a silent minute or so, he turned back to the RK900, slipping the item into his front jacket pocket beside his police badge.

“Think that was a waste of time. He seemed perfectly innocent and normal t’me,” Gavin drawled, his voice returning to its usual lazy, cut-corners-around-literal-fucking-words pace. “You got anything to add? Y’gotta, you were awfully frowny and quiet back there, Robocop.”

His words seemed to force the frown back onto the android’s fce. “Yes, Detective. I noticed that-”

He was cut short by a harsh slamming noise that seemed to echo across the entire hallway, a slamming noise caused by the sharp opening of Samuel Reyn’s door that was quickly followed by the familiar sound of the reloading of a fuckin’ _gun_.

Oh, _fuck_. 

Fuck, fuck, _fucking fuck._

Fuck, oh, fuckin’ hell, he should’ve fuckin’ known. Cases that seemed ordinary always ended in some majorly crazy ass shit.

“He’s got a phckin’ gun!” he shouted to nobody in particular - although it was probably aimed towards the tin can, on second thought - as he lunged backwards, his arm instinctively curling around the RK900, instinct alone beginning to rule his actions. “Move, prick!” He jerked backwards, pulling the android slightly towards the elevator (curse the apartment’s shitty architects for not putting in a stairway - that was just common fuckin’ courtesy, and the way to avoid childhood obesity) and silently cursing his brother and Cyberlife for engineering such a stocky android. 

An incoherent shout ripped through the air, followed by the sharp, painfully loud blast of a gun as the detective pulled the suddenly moving RK900 away. It was only when his ears were quickly recovering from the harsh noise - he’d eventually grown used to the sounds over time working on the force, and he found that the ringing that followed the noises cleared much faster for him than most others - that he noticed the android had carefully positioned himself in front of Gavin, whose sleek leather jacket was suddenly covered in splattered _blue_ blood.

Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck _again._

It was also only then that he remembered that he was carrying his concealed weapon - _ah, shit, fuck you, Gavin Reed, fuck you for being such a fuckin’ moron_ , he thought - and wrenched it out of his jacket’s inner pocket, clutching it rather shakily in his hand (he was certainly still shocked and not fully understanding what had occurred and why there was cerulean splatters of blood splashed across his coat). Forcing himself to slide in front of the android - and cursing himself for moving so slowly; when’d he get so out of practice? - he aimed the gun at the shouting redhead’s foot, fully intending to fire before it disappeared from its position.

Vision snapping upwards, he narrowed his eyes as Samuel pivoted and darted back into his apartment. “Fuck!” he yelled out, uncoiling his arm from around the android to abandon him in chase of the suspect. “Fuck, fuck!” He stomped into the apartment, darting about pieces of furniture as he tailed the male, who withdrew into a small hallway. He desperately attempted to steadily train his gun on the male’s foot (he wasn’t interested in possibly maiming or killing the explosive Mr. Reyn, due to the insane amounts of paperwork that often followed) or lower leg as they drew deeper and deeper into the apartment, his body working on instinct and his brain not entirely understanding the risks of possibly facing off with the strange man.

“Stop right fucking there!” he shouted again as Samuel rounded a corner and out of his sight, slamming a door behind him and letting a clicking sound emanate from it. _Fuck,_ he thought for what seemed like the thousandth time, _he fucking locked it, the dickhead. Fuck, ah,_ shit _...how’re we gonna get out of this one?_

He threw his body against the door, covering the golden handle with his free hand and twisting desperately, as if the harder he did so the better his chances were to open the damn thing. Thrashing against the dark structure, he only paused momentarily when his ears faintly caught the sound of a sharp crashing noise.

Fuck. 

Gavin Reed had been in the force long enough to know what that meant.

But the accident usually only occurred with young to middle aged adults who were fleeing on a first or, to push it, second floor or with risky little deviants. For all his years, the detective had hardly ever seen a chase ending with the perp fleeing through a broken window on the third floor and up end with anything besides a mangled corpse on the sidewalk.

Still, miracles always occurred, and with a sinking feeling in his gut Gavin imagined that God had been kind enough to shine down on the escaping Mr. Reyn. 

Shakily, he paused his rapid hurtling to catch his breath, his chest heaving up and down massively as his adrenaline finally faded and allowed his body to tell himself just how tired he was. Even so, his brain was already making up its mind to pursue the mysterious gun wielding, tea drinking idiot (because even if the perpetrator was an idiot, he certainly wasn’t as big as one as Gavin - something that he tended to be obviously very, very proud of and something he was constantly reminded he shouldn’t be).

It was only when he exited the apartment and got a full look of the blue splattered, plastic mess, his hard set expression of determination sinking away to reveal true, pure _worry_ \- an emotion usually so foreign for Gavin to exhibit towards others - that his brain flitted back and properly reviewed what had just happened.

For a second, his head flashed downwards, allowing his gray-brown eyes view of his own cobalt-blue dosed shirt and jacket, allowing his brain a short moment to catch up to speed and realize his fault.

His eyes widened.

Oh, for the millionth time, _fuck._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> titles are lowkey getting shittier and shittier as i run out of ideas ~~(same for chapters ahem)~~
> 
> this chapter's a bit choppy, erratic, and more clunkily fast-paced since I got a little bored of more domestic stuff and haven't had a lot of time to go back and edit, since i've been busy for the past few days with school things. my schedule's definitely gonna get a lot more choppy and messy as it's gradually becoming once school starts, but hopefully i'll still be able to post a chapter every few days or so.
> 
> i was contemplating putting a little cursing warning but i realized - it's fairly obvious lmao
> 
>  
> 
> please leave a comment/kudos/etc. because this fic legit lives off of them haha. it'd help me lots!


	11. Blood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which RK900 is injured, Gavin laughs, and he decides to not act like a dick for once.

He didn’t want to believe it.

Didn’t want to believe that the oddly, terribly beautiful tendris of cobalt unfurling on his own - but mostly the android’s - jacket were real, didn’t even want to catch the slightest sight of it.

Because, at that dumb, dumb point, he knew that he should’ve been able to believe things just off of seeing them. Especially after the shit that still, still plagued him ~~(even when he knew, he fucking _knew_ that he should’ve been over that shit by now, shouldn’t have been so hung up, shouldn’t)~~.

In the end, inside he knew truly that if he saw it, he would start to believe that it was somewhat real, not a dumb little trick, not a bunch of masterfully splattered Kool-Aid.

And if he started to believe that it was real, he would know that it was his fault.

He _had_ reacted slowly enough to allow the android to throw his synthetic body ahead of his own, after all, and so it was all his fault that Cyberlife’s finest toy was damaged.

Shit.

He didn’t even know how they were repaired, he thought as he convinced himself his sharp pangs of concern and fear rose solely from the fact that he was certainly going to be held responsible to get him fixed, and that he simply did not have the money for that, seeing as he was still paying for an apartment that he didn’t even live in anymore.

Yes, his concern appeared simply because of that.

Rather rigidly, he took a single step forwards, eyes darting about suddenly as if he was too afraid to stare too deeply at the wound. It was only when he was able to eventually slow his pace that he was able to give the wound a good look. Although there was still some distance in the hall between the two, Gavin was able to tell that the wound looked rather ghastly - it appeared quite deep from a first glance, although he reasoned that it was perfectly possible that it simply looked like that.

It was only when he took another step forwards that his eyes widened in shock, wispy pupils almost shrinking to allow more dull yet somehow also vibrantly brilliant gray forwards.  
Oh, shit.

The wound was gaping right in one of the sides of his chest.

Crap, crap, wasn’t that where the thirium pump went?

Oh, he was so screwed if the android was dead or vitally damaged, fu -

“I am...fine, Detective,” the RK900 spoke suddenly, voice somehow more clipped and mechanical than usual (initially, Gavin thought it was from the pain, but he was reminded from the plain look on the android’s face that _they_ couldn’t even feel that shit) and cutting off Gavin’s cluttered, worried little thoughts.

“What?” he muttered for a moment, taken aback by the RK900’s reply before he was able to draw closer and realize that the wound had indeed been lodged around the armpit of the android on its arm as he had initially suspected, not around the more vital areas of its chest.

Well, shit, he probably looked like an idiot, he thought rather crossly even as his face’s colours eventually evened themselves out, making him look less ghostly pale, and most crude strings of uncouth words disappeared from his mind.

“Oh - fine, I don’t care anyways,” he shoveled out of his mouth hurriedly afterwards, attempting to regain his pride after acting so worried for the android. He was a fucking piece of plastic, he told himself, doesn’t matter if the thing gets dented enough.

It’ll keep in general shape in the end.

“But,” he added quickly, attempting to regain his small voice of reasoning, “I don’t want a fuckin’ report on me just because you got hurt on my hands, so you need to go one of them android hospitals or sum’ shit before we go back to the precinct.” Yes, that was fairly reasonable.

Strangely enough, his sentence - of which he found rather simple, in fact - seemed to confuse the android, forcing the walking supercomputer to cock his head at the words. “Hospital?” he repeated slowly, his tongue drawing out the simple word as if he didn’t understand it. “...What is that, Detective?”

Shit.

Well, apparently, _he didn’t._

“You don’t know what a fuckin’ hospital is?” the detective shouted immediately, perhaps reacting rather brazenly and abrupt reasoning that the man he was speaking to had a big blue wound in their arm. “You don’t - you - you don’t f - a fuckin’ _hospital_?”

The android responded by simply shaking his head, looking rather confused for somebody who had a hole in themselves at the moment.

Rather harshly, Gavin started to cough out a harsh, wheezing cackle, sounding quite breathless (he had just been on a chase, after all, and he was still pissed that the RK900 was blocking him from continuing it due to the fact that he had a wound, even if it was his own fault he had one). “So Cyberlife programs you with a fuckin’ sass mechanism and the ability to use sarcasm and a goddamn superiority complex, but you don’t know what a hospital is?”

“No.”

“That is fucking _rich._ ”

Funny how he could practically laugh at somebody - an android, of course, but nevertheless somebody - with their own vibrant blood colouring their garments, could scorn them with such casual ease. 

He supposed he should be feeling somewhat ashamed and overall fearful, as he had initially, but the neutral look of the android paired with the absurdity of the large wound and his limited knowledge on hospitals was still almost enough to make him chuckle mirthfully.

Fuck, he was insane.

“You’re a fuckin’ supercomputer, aren’t you? Look it up.”

He had only been partially serious with his statement, but he was still forced to watch the android tilt his head once again and place an even blanker expression on his face. Gavin assumed he was Googling the damn word or whatever the fuck - he probably should’ve known enough about androids to understand to that extent, seeing as his partner was one, but of course he didn’t.

His eyebrows raised as a look of shock crossed the android’s face, the sharp features of his face twisting to form a strange, probably stimulated expression as he stared at the detective.

“H-hospital?” stuttered the android - did androids stutter? Could they? Fucking Cyberlife, programming the most random shit.

Although, on second thought, it sounded more like static than a real human stutter. 

But really, it was interesting seeing a prissy, sarcastic bitch get taken down a peg only moments afterwards. Although a bullet in the arm tended to do that to people, he supposed ~~(and especially himself)~~.

“Yeah. You got a fuckin’ problem?” he growled, already disliking the strange look on the android’s face (mostly because it was fucking _fake_ , he told himself ~~with slight doubt clouding his mind~~ firmly). Perhaps he should’ve been kinder - the android _had_ just possibly saved his life and certainly at least just from a bullet - but he had never been one to do favors for, after all, on account of the fact that he would probably never pay it back.

“No - no - Detective, I do not have a ‘problem,’” he rattled back slowly, eyes glazing over with what looked, rather strangely, like _actual fear_ (nonsense - he really needed to spend less time with his roommates; they were beginning to make him think like fucking Hank). “I - I simply di - dislike the fact that the rooms - the buildings bear such a strong resemblance to buildings commonly associated with Cyberlife.”

Oh.

So that was his deal.

That was strange of his fucked up half-brother to do - he’d always thought that he had manufactured androids to create perfection, to create things that were so very beautiful they put simple humans to shame, so the numbers of errors he found in the previously called perfect android (or at least Cyberlife’s finest) surprised him. Of course, there was deviancy to take into account, but it was simply odd how something that Gavin had always thought was more of small malfunctions in machinery at most could create such severe changes and powerful results.

Or, simply - it was weird how his brother had decided to make an android with a damn superiority complex _and_ what he was assuming was an actual _fear_ of his creators.

Maybe he should’ve been more sympathetic - the damn thing had been rescued from a facility, after all, where he probably had been subjected to shitty things after shitty things. But still, it was terribly strange how something he had always thought had purely been created to stand as a pillar of perfection in humanity’s brokenness was somewhat fractured. 

Perhaps, even broken.

That was funny to think, an engineered little thing being broken - perhaps as much as himself.

“If you don’t have a problem, we’re going to the hospital,” Gavin continued slowly, a small amount of threat and curiosity working its way into his voice as he spoke. It was very clear to see that the thought of going to a hospital to mend the android’s somewhat severe injury scared the shit out of him, but Gavin was nevertheless curious to see what he could push out of the bot from the information.

The android’s swirling gray eyes widened dramatically at the man’s words, making Gavin imagine that he would’ve paled if not for his blue blood. “No!” he shouted afterwards, stepping forwards quickly to peer intently downwards at the gray-green eyed male. The sheer force of his voice startled Gavin, who stumbled backwards at both that and the sudden proximity of the two. “I - _please,_ Detective - just - just let us go somewhere else.”

If Gavin had not been ~~always so cowardly unsure of himself~~ even less of a good person, he would’ve remarked that that was the first time the android had truly pleaded with him for something.

But the simple, strange truth that seemingly radiated from the android’s shimmering pools of gray was more than enough to jarr him into the rare, awkward, and always somewhat gruff level of kindness that had always been difficult to coax him into.

If he had been a more rational man, one might’ve said that the fact that the RK900 had just saved the man from a bodily wound would’ve been important in the matter as well, but one could really never expect such domestic predictability from Gavin Reed.

He relented uncharacteristically fast, raising a non-thirium splattered palm to press into one of his eyes rather wearily. Fuck, was he getting soft (or maybe he just wasn’t enough of a dick to force an android into confronting what could be a rather large phobia very early on).

Still, he didn’t know if he had a place to take the damn thing. He doubted that the quite frightened prick would be able to step foot in the precinct (and as much as Gavin wanted to report the perp that had just fled, he definitely didn’t want to go through the mountains of paperwork that would immediately rise up the moment he entered with a literal bloody android) with his state. On the other hand, he didn’t have many other places to take the damn thing.

He sure as hell wasn’t taking him home to his roommates - as petty as it was, he would prefer not to have a squealing blonde on his hand (and would prefer not to see the pathetic mannerisms of the other two).

So where the fuck was he supposed to go?

 ~~His apartment~~?

 _No, fuck no, I’m not taking him there,_ he insisted to himself. _No fucking way that an android’s ever gonna step foot in there -_

 _You have to do it, Gavin,_ smoothly replied his self conscious. _Where else are you going to take him? Where else is there that’s secure?_

Fuck.

He hated how rational the only logical parts of his brain could sometimes be.

He fucking hated whoever the hell had programmed humans (perhaps heaven’s own little bratty Elijah Kamski) for adding a good conscience to their list of features. That was really, really shitty, especially when _he_ was trying to act really, really shitty.

He would’ve called back _No, I don’t, shut the fuck up_ rather childishly at his own consciousness if that hadn’t been one of the most stupid things in existence.

A soft sigh that really sounded like more of a gasp escaped his lightly parted lips moments afterwards, his silvery green eyes rolling as his palm raised upwards to instead massage his forehead.

Fuck, he was gonna help a phckin’ android.

Lovely. Just lovely. Elijah would think it was the end of the world if he could see him now.

Well, if he was gonna do something disgusting, might as well get it done with fast. Like ripping off a bandage.

“I - uh,” he started, his hesitation evident by the way he slowly put his words and seemed to be gruffly pushing them out of his mouth rather than actually eloquently speaking them.

Fuck, fuck, he was really gonna have to do this.

Fuck it. Might as well prove to the world he wasn’t a total shithead, after all, although that might be coming too late.

“I got a place you can go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> woah
> 
> sorry for the break y'all i got screwed with school lmao
> 
> hopefully uploads will be once a weak on from now? enjoy anyways (although i still apologize for the quality and length of this chapter, it's the best i could really produce)
> 
>  
> 
> drop a kudos/comment/etc if you want!


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